MEDIA REACTION ON 9/11 COMMEMORATION

UNCLAS AMMAN 007004 SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN USAID/ANE/MEA LONDON FOR TSOU SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR JO SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON 9/11 COMMEMORATION Editorial Commentary -- "A less safe world" Chief Editor Ayman Safadi writes on the back-page of independent, centrist Arabic daily Al-Ghad (09/11): "The George Bush administration handled the crime of September 11 with a mentality of vengeance, and thus turned the entire world into a struggle arena and contributed to the creation of an environment that yielded thousands of those who are desperate, frustrated and lacking faith in the possibility of bringing justice to the oppressed.... The world today, unlike what Bush and his media machine are promoting, is less safe than what it used to be five years ago. More seriously is that the clash of civilizations and the rejection of the other have become in many ways real for which the moderates and the proponents of west-east coexistence are paying the price.... The war on terrorism failed, and the United States alone bears the responsibility of aiding the leader of terrorism, Osama Bin Laden, to divide up the world into two and to weaken the voices of moderation and reason in the region.... American declared September 11 a national day. This date should have been a world day for rejecting terrorism and search for justice. But his opportunity was missed by Washington as it exercised unilateralism based on the logic of force, the marginalization of others, and the denial of rights in a battle that is, by its causes and effects, a global one." -- "Five years and the invasion is continuing" Columnist Manar Rashwani writes on the op-ed page of independent, centrist Arabic daily Al-Ghad (09/11): "Five years since what Al-Qaeda likes to call the 'invasion of Manhattan' and since what the U.S. administration likes to call the 'counter' terrorism war, it seems that victory is on the side of both these two arch enemies.... This however does not mean that there is not a losing party that pays the price for the entire thing. There is, and it is those same people that each of Al-Qaeda and the U.S. administration claim they supporting and liberating, be that from occupation or from dictatorship. Because of the American invasion of Arab and Muslim countries under the pretext of the war on terrorism, with all accompanying breaking of international laws and agreements and permitting of every inhuman practice, particularly in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the United States gave legitimacy that was lacking to Al-Qaeda, thus turning from an organization into thought that invades the minds of many of Arab and non-Arab Muslims. And because American today seems to be more immune, Al-Qaeda convinced iself that it should move its battles to places from which American left and to places where America has interests, especially the Arab and Muslim world. Therefore, the United States has completed the cycle of invasion that is surrounding the Arab and Muslim people. Between an American invasion and an invasion by Al-Qaeda, and from the Manhattan invasion to the American-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, it seems that the Arab or Muslim person has the choice of dying at the hands of state terrorism that is exercised by America and Israel or the one exercised by Al-Qaeda, so much so that it is no longer possible or logical to talk about 'war on terrorism', because in reality, it is a war on moderations." -- "Five years on the war on terrorism, what next?" Columnist Oraib Rantawi writes on the op-ed page of center-left, influential Arabic daily Ad-Dustour (09/11): "The reaping of five years of terrorism and war on terrorism that followed the September 11, 2001 [attacks] reveals a deficiency in achieved results of this global war. The United States that has reaped failure in its attempts at taking out Al-Qaeda, eliminating its leadership and containing its 'thought' is today witnessing the downfall of its projects one after the other in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration is also losing its allies one after the other.... The war of Bush and his allies on terrorism has not yet borne fruit, and most likely it will not end in winning the hearts and minds of the millions of Arabs and Muslim, but rather the contexts and the paths of this war have earned the United States and its allies and friends more animosity and hatred and have prepared for the birth of new generations of terrorists and for new versions of extremist and hardline thoughts.... Five years have passed since the 'Manhattan invasion', and they were enough to show the sterility of the American policies in the Middle East and to expose the 'immoral' aspects of that policy. After all, American values broke in Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo and the tens of other secret and public prisons, just as the values and morals of the American military and political foundation broke in Ramadi, Anbar and Falluja. Five years were enough for the rise and fall of the theory of spreading democracy in the Middle East. The United States that came to the Middle East on the ruins of the British-French colonialism went back to its coalition with the regimes themselves without shedding one tear over the end of the 'Partnership' and the downfall of democracy in the Middle East. The war on terrorism will probably lead to the launch of a new wave of terrorism and new generations of terrorists. After all, the causes that led to the rise and spread of the phenomenon continue to exist, indeed now more than ever before." HALE