The al-Jazeera revelation — by Saleh Bechir

George W Bush’s musings about bombing the leading Arab satellite TV station betray hard truths about the United States’s “war on terror”, says Saleh Bechir.

by Saleh Bechir (translated from the French by Alexandra Matine)
7 December 2005
openDemocracy

The absurdity of censorship attempts is that they usually end by exposing to the audience what they seek to hide. The reaction of the British government to the Mirror report about George W Bush and al-Jazeera is a perfect illustration. If Tony Blair’s office had wanted to confirm the newspaper’s claim – that a memo of a meeting between the United States president and the British prime minister indicated that Bush wished to bomb the Qatar-based broadcaster – it would have reacted in precisely the same way. [...]

From this point of view, and not prejudging its military or political outcome, the war is already a failure. From Guantánamo to Abu Ghraib, from the CIA “black sites” in Europe to the use of white phosphorus on the civilians of Fallujah, the American war has become unbearable. These deeds, if committed by any other “rogue state”, would be considered war crimes or crimes against humanity. True, there is no such thing as a “clean war”. But Bush’s war is self-polluted by the blatant contradictions between its claimed motivations and its reality. [...]

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