The Iraq Prisoner Torture Scandal Analysis

May 7, 2004


On Friday, May 7, ADC and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) held a press conference on the Iraq Prisoner Torture Scandal at the National Press Club Building in Washington, DC. ADC President and former congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar and Communications Director Hussein Ibish were joined by MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati in addressing the issue. The organizations provided the media with three analytical responses to the scandal: an overall assessment and statement, a brief summary of how hatred against Arabs and Muslims is spreading in our national institutions, and a set of recommendations for how to address the scandal and the growing culture of hate that created it. The three documents are included, in that order, below.

ADC/MPAC STATEMENT ON THE SCANDAL

Culture of Hate: The Iraq Prisoner Torture Scandal

Washington, DC, May 7 -- Our beloved United States of America should be the bastion of human rights at home and abroad. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison represents a growing trend in our culture that demonizes and dehumanizes Arabs and Muslims in general. This destructive attitude, which is creeping ever closer to the mainstream of American thought, authorizes and legitimates these appalling abuses. It suggests that the west, which is simply good, is at war with the Arab and Islamic worlds, which are simply bad, and stigmatizes Arab Americans and American Muslims. It conflates innocents with criminals, moderates with extremists, and progressives with fundamentalists, casting an entire culture and an entire faith as "the enemy."While we commend the many national leaders who have denounced the scandal of Abu Ghraib, unfortunately the torture was not an isolated incident but manifestation of hate rooted in a distortion of American culture. The soldiers and civilians accused of torturing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners were reflecting, among other things, an irrational hatred against Arabs and Muslims. Hatred in Abu Ghraib is inextricably linked with hatred increasingly fostered by some elements of our government, our media, and other major national institutions. Soldiers involved in the abuse have told the media that it was encouraged by military intelligence in order to "soften up" prisoners for interrogations. Is it really a coincidence that the head of military intelligence, Gen. Boykin, is on record as casting the war on terror as a religious war, as saying that the enemy is "a guy called Satan," and that Muslims worship "an idol"? Anti-Arab and anti-Islamic sentiment is threatening the national security of America, as the images of hooded Iraqis tortured by American soldiers in one of Saddam Hussein's most notorious prisons adds fuel to anti-American sentiment. The President and the Congress should be more concerned with addressing root causes of this hideous behavior by our military rather than the largely neffective damage control we have been witnessing. Only the American people can eradicate this strain of hate. It is time to hold accountable those who are instigating hatred against Arabs and Islam as they are undermining fundamental American values and increasing the threat to our national security. We can no longer allow voices of hate and fear to go unchallenged in our society.

While the rhetoric emanating from our political leaders purports to civilize the Arab and Muslim worlds in a campaign for a grand transformation, the realities on the ground point to spreading chaos and suffering and a drift towards a disastrous "clash of civilizations." Until we recognize voices of conscience in our government that understand and speak against this burgeoning hate against Arabs and Islam in American culture, then more Abu Ghraibs will happen.

We believe that the principles of justice and freedom can be realized within the Arab and Muslim worlds through more constructive engagement with its peoples. These values should be represented more strongly in our foreign policy, which should never be reduced to the patterns of dominance and subordination so graphically displayed in the photos from Abu Ghraib.

Out of our love for our country and as proud Americans, we commit ourselves and resources to promoting an American culture that will advance human rights in our foreign policy and civility in domestic affairs, with the goal of improving US relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds.

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTATION A CULTURE OF HATE: HOW ANTI-ARAB AND ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT IS SPREADING IN OUR NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

I -The government:
* Gen. William G. Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, said of a Muslim Somali militia leader, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Speaking in uniform before a Christian group in June, 2003, Boykin claimed "radical Islamists" hate America "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian...and the enemy is a guy named Satan." Our "spiritual enemy," Boykin said, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus." This is the man who is in charge of the military intelligence officials accused of encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by guards to "soften them up" for interrogations.

* According to a 2002 column by Cal Thomas, Attorney General John Ashcroft told him that "Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you," while Islam is "a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him." Ashcroft later said that the reported remarks, "do not accurately reflect what I believe I said." But Thomas told the New York Daily News, ""I wrote it down accurately and repeated it to make sure I had it right." Ashcroft never issued any further clarification.

* In August 2003, President Bush made a recess appointment of Daniel Pipes to the Board of Directors of the US Institute for Peace. Pipes' stock-in-trade is anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric, and there is almost no figure in the United States who has done more to paint Arabs and Muslims in a negative and threatening light. Pipes has even warned of the dangers of American Muslims voting in American elections, in 2001 saying "the presence and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews," and that "I make the same point respectively to audiences of women, gays, civil libertarians, Hindus, Evangelical Christians, atheists, and scholars of Islam, among others, all of whom face 'true dangers' as the number of Muslims increases." None of this prevented him from being appointed to the Board of the institute by the President, but it did necessitate a recess appointment, as Congress was not prepared to confirm Pipes given his appalling record of hate.

* Several members of Congress have made anti-Arab or anti-Muslim remarks, but none have been censured by either the House or Senate. In one recent example, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) called American Muslims "an enemy living amongst us" and said that ""no (American) Muslims are cooperating" with law enforcement officials to combat terrorism. He added: "I would say, you could say that 80- 85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists. Those who are in control. The average Muslim, no, they are loyal, but they don't work, they don't come forward, they don't tell the police [inaudible]." Arab-baiting has also been used in attempts to tar Arab- American candidates as sympathizers with terrorism solely on the basis of their ethnicity, without producing much of an outcry.

II - Religious leaders:
The most notable feature of the increased climate of negativity facing Arab Americans in the post 9/11 environment has been an increasingly vicious, sustained and coordinated attack by leaders of the evangelical Christian right on Islam as a faith and even on the Prophet Mohammed as an individual.

* Rev. Jerry Falwell told CBS's 60 Minutes program that the Prophet Mohammed was a "terrorist."

* Rev. Pat Robertson of the 700 club said Mohammed was a "killer" and a "brigand," and said that Islam was inherently violent and that the Koran preaches violence.

* Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention called Mohammed a "demon possessed pedophile."

* Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and head of Billy Graham Ministries Inc., and who led the prayer at President Bush's inauguration, repeatedly denounced Islam, calling it "a very wicked, evil religion."While this campaign of defamation has been criticized in many quarters, the evangelical preachers involved have by no means suffered significant social or political stigmas. The Rev. Robertson's organization was in receipt of many thousands of dollars in federal aid under the President's faith based initiative programs. Rev. Graham was invited to give an Easter sermon at the Pentagon in 2003. None of these religious figures have been treated as pariahs as a result of their open bigotry, and all continue to be seen as legitimate public figures with an important contribution to the national conversation.

III - The media:
* Radio - Right-wing talk radio, a major aspect of social and political discourse in the United States, has become a bastion of hatred, rage and incitement to violence against Arabs and Muslims. The most shocking recent example of this very wide-spread trend was Jay Severin, a highly-rated host on Boston's WTKK-FM, demanding the killing of Muslims, telling a caller that, "I believe that Muslims in this country are a fifth column...The vast majority of Muslims in this country are very obviously loyal, not to the United States, but to their religion." He then told the caller, "You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them." Sadly, the examples of similar excesses on American talk-radio are far too numerous to mention, and WTKK took no action whatsoever to discipline Severin or ensure he would not continue his call for mass murders. This case represents the tip of the iceberg of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim hate on American talk-radio today.

* Newspapers - Too many papers routinely include hateful and defamatory commentary, including by syndicated columnists such as Ann Coulter, Cal Thomas, Michelle Malkin, and others who make a living by promoting hatred and discrimination. The Wall Street Journal's commentary section has a particularly shameful record of printing defamation and incitement, as do a number of tabloid papers, including the New York Post, Boston Herald, and Chicago Sun-Times.

* Magazines - The National Review, Weekly Standard and Commentary, among others, have all made Arab and Muslim-bashing, and the promotion of avoidable wars and violence, a mainstay of their content. For instance, an article in the latest edition of Commentary by Alain Besancon, "What Kind of Religion is Islam," revives the oldest theological arguments casting Islam as a pagan and not a monotheistic religion and draws entirely on medieval calumnies against Muslims and Islam.

* The Internet - The web is filled with sites, both marginal and more mainstream, that make Arab and Muslim-bashing a central element in their
content. The National Review Online (NRO.com), Worldnetdaily.com, Frontpagemag.com, and other sites that cannot be easily dismissed as representing and speaking only to a lunatic fringe, all feature outrageous and unrestrained attacks on Arabs and Muslims on a daily basis.

* Entertainment media - Decades of representations of Arabs and Arab-Americans as terrorists in literally hundreds of movies featuring thousands of such characters in recent decades, as exhaustively cataloged in Jack Shaheen's book Reel Bad Arabs (Interlink, 2001), cemented a firm connection in the minds of many Americans between Arabs and terrorism. Key recent examples include True Lies, The Siege and, perhaps the most vicious anti-Arab film ever made, Rules of Engagement.

Such images are not countered by positive or even neutral images of Arabs and Arab-Americans are virtually non-existent in our entertainment media, for which the Arab is invariably a villain or a buffoon, and usually a terrorist.

RECOMMENDATIONS

WHAT MUST BE DONE IN RESPONSE TO THE SCANDAL:

I. By the government:

* A thorough investigation must commence that recognizes the systemic nature of these abuses and punishes those responsible at the highest levels, not just subordinates.

* An immediate review must be undertaken of training for U.S. forces in the aws of war, the human rights of prisoners, and developing respect for the different cultures and peoples of the world.

* Senior officials who openly express anti-Arab or anti-Muslim bigotry and hostility are unfit for office and should be dismissed.

* The government should not host, promote or fund any organization which promotes anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiments, including through federally- funded "faith based" initiatives.

* The President and other U.S. government officials should stop making comments that suggest that the scandal demonstrates the virtue of the American democracy. Any lauding of our democratic system, of which we are all justly proud, in the context of this scandal, taints our democracy and will only foster greater resentment and anti-American sentiment.

* The United States should make a formal commitment that its long-term goal is the removal of all U.S. military forces from Iraq, and has no plans for any extended military presence in that country, including through a status of forces agreement with a future Iraqi government.

II. By the media:

It is time for our national media to take responsibility for their content, especially since representations of and what is being said about Arabs, Arab- Americans, Muslims and Islam in the mainstream American media is being watched carefully around the world and has a direct impact on our national security.

* The mainstream media should stop treating defamatory and hostile commentary by Arab and Islam-bashers as a legitimate contribution to the national conversation. Debates on the merits of claims such as "Islam is a violent religion," "Muhammad was a terrorist," "most Muslims are disloyal Americans," etc., are not any more appropriate than debating claims like "Judaism is a gutter religion" or "Catholics are more loyal to the pope than America." By simply staging such debates the media provides a certain measure of legitimation for these claims.

* Mainstream newspapers and syndicates should review their standards for columns and contributions and adhere to a single standard when it comes to comments regarding all racial, ethnic, national origin and religious groups. Arab Americans, Muslims and others should not be subject to more lax standards of fairness and decency from editors, publishers and syndicates than Americans of European, African, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish or other backgrounds.

* A single standard of fairness needs to also be applied by filmmakers and television production companies. The long history of American movies and television shows which are defamatory to Arabs and Muslims has been well documented. Very few have ever contained positive or even neutral Arab or Muslim characters.

* Radio stations should dismiss talk show hosts who openly call for killing Arabs or Muslims or who engage in crude racism towards any group of Americans or others.

III. By civic leaders and prominent citizens:

It is time for the civic leaders of our country across the board to recommit themselves to maintaining a society that shuns bigotry and does not condone or ignore vicious, defamatory attacks against millions of Americans, their religious beliefs or their cultural and ethnic background.




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