May 09 , 2008

Weapon of Words

 

Government departments in the US, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the National Counter-Terrorism Center, and the State Department, are now instructing their personnel not to describe radicals as ‘Islamo-fascists’ or ‘jihadists’.  There is a growing sense that use of such terminology offends the larger Muslim community.  It is the point this writer has been making for years in the US and elsewhere.
To measure its true offensiveness, let someone in Western media or academia try routinely depicting evangelical Christians as ‘Christian-fascists’ or Zionist settlers of occupied Palestinian territories as ‘Judeo-fascists’.  This over-clever ploy to use the behavior of the few to tarnish the whole may ultimately backfire and prove to be a self-inflicted wound. 
It suggests a clearly orchestrated attempt to plant the perception and entrench it in the public imagination that Islam equals violence. 
The New York Times’ leading front-page story of April 28, written by Andrea Elliot, highlights “the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life.” 
The merchants of hate have been unusually fortunate in that their task, in effect, is made easy by the most unimpressive and inept set of Muslim governing elites in modern history.  These guys are tigers in their own domestic surroundings but, in Western capitals, they behave like turkeys.
Hate words are the first steps toward hateful action.  It is supposed to condition the public into an ‘us versus them’ mindset and to view the ‘other’ as the enemy. 
Such was the climate which led to the abuse and torture of detainees in flagrant violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which enjoins humane treatment and prohibits degrading treatment of detainees.  On June 29, 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfield that Guantanamo inmates were entitled to Article 3 protections under the Geneva Conventions.
Philippe Sands, a renowned professor of law at University College, London, has just written a book which will be released on May 13, called “The Torture Team”.  This book implicates the top officialdom of the Bush White House for endorsing torture practices and the author argues that those responsible can face prosecution for war crimes. 
The evidence is now indisputable that the US is in the throes of a crisis.  A recent Gallup poll showed that nearly 70% of Americans expressed no confidence in the direction in which the Bush Administration has taken America. The global hike in fuel and food prices have now hit the pocketbooks of US consumers and, with unemployment rising, American consumer confidence has slumped to a 26-year low. 
The US Army has its hands full, with reports that it has recruited felons – including those with burglary and theft convictions as well as sex crimes – to make up for the shortfall.  Compounding the problem is a rising rate of suicide among US Army veterans. 
Yet, despite that, vested interests in America are pushing the US to open a third front in the broader Muslim world.  It is the hidden agenda of these interests, not conditions in Iran, which is driving this jingoism.  Those who urge the US to attack Iran, frequently focus on what such an attack may do to Iran.  But they skip narrating what it will do to the US and its vital interests.  For its part, however, the already over-stretched US military is showing little inclination for additional adventurism in the Middle East.
But that has not been the case during the 2008 US presidential race.  Hillary Clinton has now joined the bandwagon of those making hateful and threatening speech. 
Her bellicosity has even impelled the New York Times, through its April 23 editorial (“A Low Road to Victory”) to castigate her for saying that she would, as President of the US, in support of Israel, “obliterate Iran” – a nation of 71 million.  According to the Boston Globe editorial of April 27, the exact words spoken by Hillary were “totally obliterate”.  Clarifying it further, the Boston Globe editorial stated that “obliterating Iran” includes “presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran”. 
What is noteworthy about the language deployed in the post- 9/11 world has been the lack of common sense and common human decency.