Plane plot in air pocket

The manner in which the Western media reported the alleged bomb plot has shifted the world's attention from the Israeli terror to the so-called Islamic terror.

By Ameen Izzadeen

Those who are hungry for news these days are being surfeited by the western media. Lebanon is undergoing a Nazi-type terror committed by the progeny of the survivors of Adolf Hitler's Holocaust and the news that come from Lebanon — and also Israel — is more than enough to fill hundreds of newspaper pages daily or 24 hours of air time. Prior to July 12, it was events in Iraq that made news. Just as the conflict in Lebanon eclipsed the events in Iraq, the US-British claim of an alleged terror plot to blast scores of civilian aircraft in midair has overshadowed Lebanon where hundreds of thousands of people are starving to death in the south as a result of Israel's terror. But the manner in which the Western media reported the alleged bomb plot has shifted the world's attention from the Israeli terror to the so-called Islamic terror.

An airline passenger discards his deodorant before going through the security checkpoint at Dulles International Airport on Friday.

Ever since the 9/11 attacks shook the Western world and gave a pretext for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to launch wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the memories of that dreadful day are revived regularly to prop up the flagging support for the so-called war on terror and even win elections. Senator Joe Lieberman who lost the Democratic Party's Connecticut primary for the Congressional race in November, largely due to his support of the US invasion of Iraq, seized the terror plot exposé and tried to vindicate his position. The USA Today newspaper, also reflecting the Bush mentality, said it was a "chilling reminder" that the war on terror was still on. Lieberman and USA Today have apparently got their wires crossed.

It appears that even after the United States failed to find a single weapon of mass destruction in Iraq and provide any proof that Saddam Hussein had any links with al-Qaeda, the alleged perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, some Americans still believe that the Iraq war is part of the war on terror. Such was the power of propaganda of the Bush administration which projected falsehood as truth to justify its invasion of a sovereign nation.

The defeat of Lieberman was an indication that the Republican Party will face defeat at the November elections for the one third of the congressional seats.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week showed President Bush's approval rating had dropped to 33 percent, matching his low in May. His handling of almost every issue, from the Iraq war to foreign policy, has contributed to the president's declining popularity around the nation.

Analysts who interpret the polls results predict that the Republicans would lose control of both houses. This will make Bush's task difficult, especially the execution of his plan for a "new Middle East", although there will be some Democrats congressmen and women who are as hawkish as the Dick Cheney-Donald Rumsfeld-Condoleezza Rice rightwing cabal to support him.

The London bomb plot was a windfall — let’s say it is a coincidence — for the Republicans to ride back to office on the platform of war on terror — nay war on "Islamic" terror. Terror without the Islamic label is none of their business.

It is alleged that a powerful section of the Western corporate media is in the hands of those who wage the war on terror on behalf of capitalism, rightwing evangelism and Zionism. Just before Scotland Yard announced its detection of the plane plot to the world media, the Israeli government said it was putting its operations in Lebanon on hold till the weekend to give a chance for diplomatic efforts aimed at a UN resolution to go ahead. It was an assurance that there won't be a Qana-like massacre for a couple of days to dominate the headlines of the Western media. Another coincidence? The London plot just as much it helped Washington and London to rekindle fears of “Islamic terror” in the minds of their people, also helped the Israelis to keep its war crimes out of media channels.

Does the news about the terror plot deserve such prominence? Look at some of the facts of the matter:

• The plane plot was discovered well ahead of the alleged date on which the terror suspects were to allegedly execute their plan. So there was no need to cause unnecessary panic and flight delays worldwide.

• The claim that five of the suspects are still at large was made by US authorities. Scotland Yard did not state this in its statement.

• Since 1996, or even before that, western intelligence units and law enforcement authorities have been aware of the possibility of terrorists using liquid explosives.

• None of the suspects was arrested in any of the British airports.

• The arrests were the result of a long-standing investigation — a coordinated effort of the US, British and Pakistani governments. This means the suspects had been under surveillance for a long period. Surely, the authorities could have stepped up security measures to detect liquid explosives at every western airport as soon as they came to know about the alleged plot.

• President Bush in a brief statement on Thursday said the plot was a "stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom." There are no "Jewish-fascists" in Bush's lexicon to describe those who kill children in Lebanon, and the US president, after the 9/11 attacks made a similar statement saying the "terrorists hate us, because they hate the freedom we enjoy."

In the absence of an independent and objective global TV channel to report the news as it is, the corporate media are probably over reacting —or, to use the Lebanese conflict jargon, indulging in disproportionate reporting.

This column does not try to dismiss the alleged terror plot as a Western conspiracy or protect those behind it.

Rather it cynically questions the claims made by London and Washington because neither has produced the factual account yet.

There is another reason for my scepticism: Both Washington and London poured on us heaps of similar claims — which were never substantiated— on their way to Baghdad in 2003.

So it is quite natural for us not to take anything that comes from Washington or London at face value.

If the suspects are found guilty, they should be punished, for those who kill or intend to kill innocent civilians are a threat to the whole of humanity. Terror is not an answer to state terror.

If those Muslim suspects really want to teach Washington and London a lesson for their open support for Israel's terror, they should go to Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon and fight the war to evict the colonialists and end the foreign occupation of those countries.