Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 31 September 16-22, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
Hunt,
Not Witchhunt, For Terrorists BY
EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON Back to Bulatlat.com Alternative Reader Index Federal
investigators had barely begun to sift through the bomb rubble of the Oklahoma
City federal building in April, 1995 for physical evidence and clues. They had
not interviewed survivors or eyewitnesses. They named no suspects and issued no
official statement about motives for the bombing. Yet, an expert on CBS claimed
that the bombing had a Middle Eastern trait. The
stampede was on. The rest of the TV networks blared reports that "two men
of Middle Eastern appearance" were being sought. As the death toll climbed,
the network talking heads relentlessly slammed home the message that Middle
Eastern crazies had finally struck terror in America's heartland. The
predictable happened. By week's end, according to the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, there were more than 200 physical and verbal attacks
against American Muslims, which included the burning of three Islamic mosques
and community centers. A
full-blown domestic anti-Muslim witch-hunt was brewing. Fortunately President
Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno did not rush to judgment and scapegoat
Arabs. The swift arrest of TimothyMcVeigh squelched the building mob hysteria
against them. But it didn't squelch, it propelled Clinton's 1996 Antiterroism
Act, that civil rights and civil liberties groups had waged a protracted battle
against, through Congress. The law gave the FBI broad power to infiltrate
groups, quash fundraising by foreigners, monitor airline travel, seize motel and
hotel records and trash due process by permitting the admission of secret
evidence to expel immigrants. The implication being that present and future
attacks would likely be launched by those with an Arab name and face rather than
by men like McVeigh. Though
President Bush, as Clinton, in his first public words on the apocalyptic
devastation of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon did not reflexively
finger-point at Arab terrorists. His tough-talk pledge to mount a world hunt for
the murderous culprits seemed an open signal that the prime targets of the hunt
will be Arab terrorists. The media quickly took the cue and ladled out to a
shell-shocked public PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, and especially, Saudi terrorist
Osama bin Laden as prime suspects. The grotesque attack may well have been
orchestrated by one of the smorgasbord of Islamic fundamentalist Israel and U.S.
hating terrorist groups who would gleefully bring mass destruction to U.S.
cities. This
has stirred fresh tremors that a new wave of Arab-American bashing could be in
the making. if so, the blame for that must fall on the media's wrong-headed
omissions and distortions about terroristsand their traditional targets. There
were not "thousands? as one expert claimed of terrorist attacks worldwide
last year, but 423 according to a State Department report "Patterns of
Global Terrorism.? This was a marginal increase from the number of attacks in
1999. The majority of the terror attacks were not in the Middle East but in
Latin America. The most frequent target was a multinational oil pipeline in
Columbia that Marxist guerrillas blew-up 152 times. The
next highest number of attacks occurred in Europe, mainly in Germany, Greece,
and Italy, and Turkey. This was not an departure from the terrorist norm. Most
of the attacks in recent years have been in Europe and Latin America, and few of
the attacks were directly linked to the middle East or Islam. The State
Department has fingered free-wheeling anti-government, groups such as the Tamil
Tigers of Ceylon, Shining Path in Peru, Basque separatists in Spain, the Red
Army in Germany as major terror attackers. The
Arab countries which in the past downplayed, ignored, or provided safe havens
for terrorist groups, in recent years have mounted crackdowns on these groups.
In 1998, Arab League countries formally agreed to tighten security, exchange
information with the U.S. on terrorist activities, and cooperate in their
extradition. Jordan, Egypt, and Kuwait banned HAMAS, agreed to provide more
protection for U.S. ships in the Suez, U.S. embassies, and American citizens.
The Arab governments took action against terrorists not because of any new found
love for the U.S. or Israel. Their saber-rattling rhetoric remains just as hot
against both countries. That was much evident in their near hysterical
condemnation of U.S. and Israel at the recent World Racism Conference. They have
taken action because they woke up to the fact that their fragile governments are
in dire peril from terrorist guns. Arafat,
Egypt, and Jordan did not make swift and heated denials of any responsibility
for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, solely to ward off a shower of
American cruise missiles on their heads. Though that was likely the motive of
Afghan Taliban, Pakistan, and Algeria. They denied responsibility because they
realize that reining in terrorists is in their national interests too. The
clamor by Bush and the Americans to hit even harder at the guilty will grow to a
roar. But the guilty must not translate into anyone with an Arab face and a
Muslim surname.
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