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Recent
Stories
April
23, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
When Young Mothers Die in Combat
Chris
Floyd
Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach
by Example
Marjorie
Cohn
Tax the War Profiteers
William
Lind
The Fourth Generation of Modern War
Dave Marsh
Nina Simone: Freedom Singer
Binoy
Kampmark
Malayasia's America: the War on Iraq
David Vest
Who's Looting Whom?
Standard
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Super Imperialism: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Andrew
Rodman
Lawn Poem
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/23
Website
of the Day
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
April
22, 2003
Edward
Said
The Appalling Consequences of the Iraq
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Sam
Hamod
What's the Deal with This War?
Kurt
Nimmo
Shi'a Will to Power
Gary
Leupp
At last! The Necessary Evidence
Carl
Estabrook
Oblivious Americans: They Distort,
We Subside
John
Stanton
Iran's Reza Pahlavi: a Puppet of the US and Israel?
Ramzy
Baroud
What Else Hasn't Israel Told America?
Steven
Sherman
About That Cuba Letter
Wayne Madsen
Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult
Stew
Albert
Creep
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/22
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of the Day
Critical Media Literacy in Times of War
April
21, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
An Administration in Contempt
Gary
Leupp
Easter Thoughts on Liberation, Jesus
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Roger
Witherspoon
Why Michigan Needs Affirmative Action
Uri Avnery
At Midnight, a Knock on the Door
Col. Dan
Smith
Early Lessons from Iraq
Jo
Freeman
After the Protest Comes Politics
Michael
Berry
The Friedman Absurdities
Gray
Brechin
Hang Black Banners: Mourning the Cultural Loss
Bob Riedel
The Taliban from Texas
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/21
April
19, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Rape of History
Saul
Landau
Shop, Go to Church, Support Bush's
War, Wait for Armageddon
Michael
J. Fellows
Off With Their Heads: the Constitution According to Scalia
Pablo
Mukherjee
Roadmap to Resistance
Omar
Barghouti
Sharon's Bloody Beat
Anthony
Gancarski
Tony Blair: the Most Powerful Man in the World
Mickey
Z.
Animals: the Other Collateral Damage
Will
Potter
When Police Attack Journalists
William
MacDougall
America's In-Bedded Journalism
Neve
Gordon
Haunted by History
Adam
Engel
Wal-Mart and Peace
Dr.
Susan Block
Art Bombs: American Libertines for Peace
Poets'
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Albert, Buono, Guthrie
Steve
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War Web Log 4/19
Song of
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Baghdad to Basra
April
18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Operation "Syrian Freedom":
This One's Not About Oil
Jorge
Mariscal
"They Died Trying to Become
Students": the Future of Latinos in an Era of War and Occupation
Mickey
Z:
Coalition of the Unindicted: Only Losers Get Tried for War Crimes
Hussein
Ibish
Syria and the Road to World War IV
Reza Ladjevardian
Tarqeting Iran? Do It With TV, Not Cruise Missiles
Matania
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Jews Like Us
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Allen
My Lai Revisited
Carl Estabrook
Support Our Euphemism
Steve
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War Web Log 4/18
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Meet the Victims of War
April
17, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Patriot Gore: the Fatal Flaws in
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Looting Antiquity: the Legal Implications
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Zalmay Khalilzad: the Neocon's Bagman
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Stanley
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Harold
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April 24,
2003
In the Wake of Plunder and Flames
Do You Regret
Being an American?
by ANNIE C. HIGGINS
Cairo, Egypt
"Do you regret being American?"
I was asked. I cannot remember who asked me, or even if it was
in Palestine or here in Egypt. It could have been anyone, anywhere,
anytime. There has been a continuing stream of reasons for regret,
from my country's support of assassination in Palestine to--come
to think of it, to my country's support of assassination in Iraq,
and these are just the obvious ones. But my country doesn't really
support such evil deeds. My constitution, my neighborly culture,
my conviction in the rightness of freedom of speech--these things
define my country. These are not pushing invasion and occupation
of another nation. Those making the decisions and taking the
actions that shame us all are not of the American people, nor
for us. A local commentator feels that a coup has changed the
American government, although it has not been publicly announced
or acknowledged. He does not specify whether this has taken place
in the White House or the Pentagon.
What this alleged American government,
which is the military, is doing to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay
is no different than what they are doing to themselves, padding
their ears so they do not hear, blindfolding their eyes so they
do not see, tying their own arms so they cannot feel, and binding
their legs so they cannot take steps toward any kind of progress.
Americans may not have seen the images of the Guantanamo prisoners
lately but the rest of the world has. Spanish television showed
them on the heels of a clip where the Bush administration complains
of violations of the Geneva Convention in al-Jazeera's broadcasts
of pictures.
"Do you regret being American?"
Bush is appointing a Minister of Information
in Iraq from among the seemingly omniscient JINSA group [Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs] who think they are remote-controlling
the world. One more little surprise from Iraq that the coup-makers
haven't taken into consideration is that Iraqis are sophisticated
at sorting through the news that is handed out to them. They
don't automatically accept what the little screen tells them.
They have developed a healthy habit of questioning authority
and media pronouncements. They are also aware of America's legal
violations.
"Do you regret being American?"
A special note to my countrymen and women
who have silenced voices that tell of meeting military violence
with non-violence: I don't want to prove you wrong in your silencing
effective voices that bring a small measure of justice to the
world through constructive engagement. I don't want you to apologize
openly or feel ashamed inside. I just want you to learn to love
even one glimmer of caring for your neighbor, so that you will
seek that thread of light, pursue it, delight in it, let it reflect
off of you as you stand in its path, and see that you can neither
stop it from shining nor collect it in a box and shut it away.
Who is your neighbor? I hope mine will include Samaritans, though
I am not the expert on the issue. But what if you have a dangerous
neighbor? What then? That is just what millions of people on
the planet are saying now. And they are talking about you.
"Do you regret being American?"
After reading of the sacking of Baghdad's
museums, I dreamed for two nights of pounding steady destruction.
I awoke hoping the news was a part of my dream. The unspeakable
loss made me so sick that I dreamed of vomiting the warm water
of my empty stomach. Is it repellent to read that? The ash and
desolation of historical and literary expressions are magnitudes
more nauseating.
In the wake of loss to plunder and flame,
Donny George at the Iraqi Ministry of Antiquities said, "This
is what the Americans wanted. They wanted Iraq to lose its history."
[R Fisk, Independent, 16 April 2003] No, we didn't. I didn't,
and I am one of the Americans.
"Do you regret being American?"
A Syrian friend is not surprised that
they targeted cultural places: "A nation's culture is what
holds its people together." What is holding my nation's
people together? The mutual desire to ransack history? No, we
are not together in this. At the end of the two-hour "Third
View" talk show with A-Sharq al-Awsat's Cairo bureau chief,
the Egyptian Ambassador cites Gore Vidal's vision of an America
which has split into disunited states. Off-camera, he asks me
if I felt this were possible. I have no talent for predictions,
nonetheless it is clear that there are serious splits in perceptions
of the invasion. But that is democracy, after all, a pluralistic
approach to visions and analyses!
At the height of the US/UK decapitation
mission, I turn into a small but densely-populated side street.
A woman recognizes me and engages me in conversation. Another
woman says, "American?" When I respond affirmatively,
she slides her index finger across her neck, signaling decapitation,
and utters a single word, "Bush" as she sits regally
on a gold sofa in the alley amidst nodding goats. The first woman
distances me from the decapitable American, saying, "But
she is a good one! She was at the demonstration with a big sign
against the war, and she spoke against it on television."
The sofa lady smiles and welcomes me, but the image of her sentence
on the Commander in Chief remains in my mind.
"Do you regret being American?"
Another night, a frantic email message
from America implores me to be careful in the streets of Cairo
rife with anti-American sentiment. So say the alarmist media
reports across the ocean. Reality is just the opposite. I am
unfazed by my friend's concern, responding that I feel safe walking
home at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, and I have befriended all
the nighttime street sweepers. I recall the statistic that when
homicides decreased by twenty percent in America, news of them
increased by six hundred percent. When I take a late dinner break
at my favorite spaghetti establishment, my local hero surprisingly
brings up the same topic as he dishes my portion of steaming
noodles into a plastic bowl: "You speak Arabic and you are
friendly with us, but if another American came through here,
people would kill him." I am surprised because I have not
encountered such emotions. He assures me that this is the case.
"Do you regret being American?"
Heading to a vigil at the Journalists'
Union, a lavish and imposing palace provided by the Ministry
of Defense, a phone text message comes in to the mobile of a
reporter for a major Arab newspaper: "Mubarak wants this
war. He wants to send your sons to fight. Tell others."
At the demonstration, a television announcer takes my statement,
and insists on my answering the question, "Do you feel that
Bush and Blair are committing war crimes?"
"Do you regret being American?"
Many people have told me that I was brave
to carry a large sign declaring my nationality and my position,
American Against the War, in the one and almost only demonstration
in Cairo [20 March 03]. "It takes courage to speak up like
that outside your own country." I receive news that organizers
of Chicago's 63rd Street demonstration have cancelled the action
due to "a pervasive atmosphere of fear and anxiety within
the Arab community." People are also worried about joining
the ranks of the disappeared who were taken in sweeps after 11th
September, and have not been charged or heard from since.
"Do you regret being American?"
In a humble but lively neighborhood where
a home consists of a room just big enough for a small aisle between
two beds, we exchange contact information. Conversation turns
to money, and a man in the family indicates the desirability
of the dollar over the Egyptian pound and other currencies. "No,"
says the young mother of my new four-year old sweetheart, Fuad.
"The dollar...!" she exclaims, completing her sentence
with a downward sweep of the hand. She predicts the effects of
war budgets more clearly than many Americans with larger rooms
in grander houses.
"Do you regret being American?"
Another family scene I have only read
of has a van full of people trying to follow the Army's orders
to "Be safe" printed on leaflets dropped in Baghdad
streets. They thought that these soldiers, like the first group
they met, would wave them through the checkpoint in their hurried
quest to reach safety. Instead, a hail of heavy gunfire left
them beholding their two little daughters in their seats, decapitated.
"Please be careful when you are shooting," pleads Captain
Chris Carter of the US Seventh Regiment, Third Infantry.
"Do you regret being American?"
Saddam's metal head is dragged in the
street and beamed around the world after the US Marines topple
his statue. Echoes of Constantine--when told that the people
had chopped off his statue's head, he touched his own, remarking
that he didn't feel a thing. I think of the lady on the gold
sofa in the alley, one finger across her throat and one word
on her lips, "Bush."
"Do you regret being American?"
Annie C. Higgins
specializes in Arabic and Islamic studies, and is currently doing
research in Jenin, Occupied Palestine. She can be reached at:
higgins@counterpunch.org.
Today's
Features
Anthony
Gancarski
When Young Mothers Die in Combat
Chris
Floyd
Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach
by Example
Marjorie
Cohn
Tax the War Profiteers
William
Lind
The Fourth Generation of Modern War
Dave Marsh
Nina Simone: Freedom Singer
Binoy
Kampmark
Malayasia's America: the War on Iraq
David Vest
Who's Looting Whom?
Standard
Shaefer
Super Imperialism: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Andrew
Rodman
Lawn Poem
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/23
Website
of the Day
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
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