Haaretz Negative Remarks Regarding Wikileaks

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article (10/24/10) regarding the expected nonchalant reactions by the Arab governments and Arab populations towards the Wikileaks about the Iraq war. The article viewed Arab governments and the media to be less critical of the U.S. despite the fact that the information revealed in the secret documents of the possibility of war crimes having been committed against Iraqi civilians. None of the political Arab officials in Iraq in particular demanded the withdrawal of American troop from Iraq. The general response was that most of the information revealed by the Wikileaks was already known to them.

Nevertheless, the Arab Gulf Council issued an official statement asking the U.S. government to investigate the possibilities of war crimes committed in Iraq from 2003 – 2009. Also, the Iraqi human rights organization and the Arab League asked the U.N. to investigate the information revealed by Wikileaks about the Iraq war. There was some truth to the Haaretz article, that the reaction of Arab governments, populations and the press in the Arab world was minimal. None of these Arab politicians want to upset their masters in the U.S. Furthermore, the freedom of the press in the majority of Arab countries does not exist, according to the International Journalists Without Borders. The political leadership in the Arab world has lost their dignity and gotten used to Western governments humiliation and indirect interference in their internal affairs. This situation also created a passive attitude among the population in the Arab world. The majority of the population has detached themselves from what takes place in the arena of foreign policy.

This is the result of the absence of democratic institutions, which the vast majority of world states have already acquired. This situation in the Arab world led to political corruptions at all levels. Authoritarianism encouraged Western interference in the internal affairs of the Arab world. A quick look reflects that at the present, the U.S. government is interfering in the internal affairs of Lebanon on behalf of the Israelis. The assassination of the previous Lebanese Prime Minister Mr. al-Harriri suddenly became of major concern to the U.S. Let me remind American politicians of their history of presidential assassinations, from Lincoln to Kennedy. Also, the frequent attempts of assassination against Reagan and Ford reflects the American type of violence against their political leadership, which the whole world views as an internal matter. The U.S. government has a long history of using certain incidents as a means to justify their interference through the United Nations in the internal affairs of some foreign countries. Lebanon’s case is not an exception to their political behaviors. Also, the U.S. is interfering in Sudan and encouraging the fragmentation of the country into smaller entities in order to control its natural resources. Furthermore, these interferences in Iraq lead to the destruction of the country politically, economically and socially.

Another Western power that interferes with North African governments is France, under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Such situations encourage terrorist groups like al-Qaeda to recruit young people to attack and commit acts of terror against the West. Recently, al-jazeera.net (10/27/10) broadcasted taped messages from bin Laden in which he referred to the French government’s hostile activities against Muslims and Arabs. He stated that “When you kill our people, we will kill your people, when you put our people in prisons, we will kidnap your people and when you threaten our securities we will threaten your securities.” He continued to say that in order to protect your security you are required to stop interfering in Arab-Islamic affairs and pull out from the Bush-led war. Such remarks by the leaders of al-Qaeda tend to influence the political and nationalistic views of some young people and entice some to join his organization to carry out acts of terror against the West. Those foreign powers that are involved in the Middle East are a major contributing cause to the instability of the region. They are also the major protectors of the corrupt regimes in the Arab world.