Bush's Big Bad Arab Boogieman Blocking the Dubai Port Deal
 

March 1 2006
Counterbias.com
ROBERT FURS
 

Since September 11, 2001—a horrible day made even worse by the Republican Party’s contortion of it into a political weapon—the Bush gang have drawn up a cartoon of The Big Bad Arab and have flashed it at a fearful populace and weak opposition whenever criticism, decency, sense or the law got in their way. And it worked. It always worked.

Now, Bush’s team of half-wits has taken a 180 degree turn towards a Kerry-esque world of cultural sensitivity and international diplomacy in fighting for another of their dodo-bird decisions. But it’s too late for that. The Republican history of xenophobia and national security fear-mongering is coming back to bite Bush on the proverbial tush.

Bush wants to let a United Arab Emirates government-owned company manage several major American ports. But critics are against it on national security grounds, yet have been labeled as xenophobes and racists—but only on this issue, when xenophobia doesn’t work to the President’s advantage. The New York Times quoted administration officials who “suggested that there was a whiff of racism in the objections to an Arab owner taking over the terminals.”

The Harvard Crimson editorializes that America shouldn’t “risk alienating the UAE through xenophobic passions and politics … Some U.S. citizens, for whom the designation “Arab” is synonymous with little more than “terrorist,” have managed to wrestle the spotlight onto themselves with misguided claims.” The North County Times opines that “instead of getting serious about security, Congress beats up on a few legitimate Arab businessmen”

Yet Deborah Mathis of Black America Web writes, “But who created the [racist] imagery? … Who taught it, if not the very administration that now decries it? Who was it that rounded up thousands of Arab detainees, holding them to this very day in Guantanamo Bay, many without formal charges even yet? Who has gone after charities, civic organizations and banking accounts of countless Arab-Americans and Arab immigrants on the suspicion of terrorist ties?”

Such is the War on Terror, which would be better titled the “War On Arabs who don’t like us, who might strap on a bomb and do something naughty”, but that doesn’t have same ring. “War on Mean Muslims” has a dainty alliteration to it—maybe too dainty, a bit out of step with Bush’s Tough Texan act.

So War on Terror it is—and as Thomas Walkom points out in the Toronto Star, Bush went decidedly one way on the cultural sensitivity front: since 9/11, it was fine to “lock up Muslim immigrants without charge”, “abandon its long commitment to the Geneva Conventions,” “hold prisoners indefinitely and without charge,” employ torture, erase civil rights, and invade Iraq—all in the war against extremist Arabs. And remember Bush’s famed quote, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists…From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime”? Two of the 9/11 hijackers came from the UAE. That’s two more than came from Iraq.

How does one wage a war on “terror”, a war on suicide bombers? How do you kill someone—a terrorist—whose crime, and identity as a terrorist—are known only after they kill themselves? You won’t find a reasonable answer to such a question from the Bush government. (Something like “there are folks who wanna hurt us—we’re gonna smoke ‘em out before they do” is as good as you’ll get from the President.) So how was this “war” conceptualized? Fairly simply—association. When Arab terrorists attacked on 9/11, factual information was kept in short supply while the Bush crew worked to cash in on their anti-Arab currency—Arab foes were easily connected to Al Qaeda, even if such a relationship didn’t exist. Case in point, Iraq.

What, if anything, did Saddam Hussein have to do with the War on Terror? How did the American people fall for the lies their leaders spewed forth? Saddam was brown-skinned—he did the same things countless other WMD-possessing dictators did, but he was Arab. Nonexistent Al-Qaeda connections were pushed. Somehow, even though no logical mind could see connection between the then-current War on Terror and Iraq other than Arabophobia, many bought into the Big Lie—thanks to Hussein’s metamorphosis into the Big Bad Arab, post-Osama.

The truth is, there is a war on terror, but not in the incoherent, off-target and devastatingly incompetent one that the current American government is “waging”. There really are bad people (yes, many Arab) who wish harm to America. And perhaps there really is a security risk in allowing an Arab-government owned company from managing a critically important security checkpoint into America.

But it could also be true that Bush is correct, that Americans should “trust” him on the issue. Maybe the UAE-controlled company is the best for the job. Even if true, Bush will have a tough time convincing Americans of it—especially with that Big Bad Arab peering down menacingly over his shoulder as he seeks to comfort his ever-frightened audience.
 

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