Jim Lehrer (anchor, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, PBS): �How would you describe Zarqawi?�

Gen. John Abizaid (Commander of U.S. forces on Iraq and Afghanistan): I would describe him as a mad man.�

Jim Lehrer: �Where is this guy?

Gen. Abizaid: �He's somewhere in Iraq." [Source] [Italics added]

After, we examined how President Bush, the State Department, the United Nations, and imperialist media (e.g., CNN) interpreted the terrorist attack that killed the U.N. envoy to occupied Iraq, Sergio Vieira De Mello; we shall now examine how Zionist academic circles treated the same attack.

Specifically, in which way did these circles use the attack against De Mello to manipulate American public opinion and veer it to think only in terms of �al-Qaeda," Islamic, and Arab �terrorism," while excluding a gamut of serious suspects such as the United States, Israel, Britain, American-hired mercenaries, or other vassal states that occupied Iraq? Could we interpret that manipulation as a preliminary stage for 1) the American introduction of �Zarqawi," or 2) the administration�s claim that Iraq had become the �central stage� in the war against, �terror"?

As a reminder, for a manipulation to be successful in a post-9/11 ideologically charged environment, Zionist strategists follow a well-experimented intellectual ruse: lead (mislead) the reader via endless repetitions of commonplace indoctrinating concepts without providing any proof except pre-packaged opinions and unsubstantiated reports that most readers lack the necessary tools to investigate let alone verify.

This is a cunning practice: it re-recycles previously circulated propaganda themes as verified, settled, and accepted �facts." Example: once the Bush Administration spread the rumor that Iraq threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction, Zionist think tanks and imperialist media kept repeating that rumor as if it were a solid reality.

Method: a manipulation expert (thinker) transforms those themes into false-facts by the application of what I call, the Principle of Past Thresholds (Colin Powell used this method in his U.N. deceptive presentation in February 2003.) Details: the manipulator applies two processes: mental and psychological, whereby an individual would be inclined to accept re-cycled propaganda themes as �facts� requiring no further verification. At the base of this presumed acceptance is the assumption that the public have already absorbed those themes and passed beyond the threshold of doubt when confronted with them again. Expectation: based on cognitive research, the manipulator knows that consequent to previously stratified inductions, a re-cycled theme would acquire its own �certainty� because of earlier indoctrinations that made their way into the collective consciousness through mechanical repetitions by legions of other manipulators.

By following this intellectual premise, the manipulator of Iraqi and Arab issues expects two possible developments. One: that prior indoctrination would forestall the potential urge to investigate a given matter from a different angle. Two: that the new sequential indoctrination could sink even deeper in the mind of readers since they would probably depend on stored information (disinformation) to make an updated judgment.

Consequent to these processes, a cycle of indoctrination on a subject makes a full circle: because, disinformation was at the root of the earlier judgment, the updated version would be only a matter of rationalized continuity.

In the case that we are about to examine, a Zionist professor of law attempted to make a categorical connection between the attack against the U.N. compound and Islamic �terrorism." Method: engaging in an apparent criticism of the Bush Regime for invading Iraq (hence the assassination of De Mello), while, effectively, endorsing Bush�s war in Iraq based on her understated objective to tie that war and the assassination to �Islamic terrorism," which in turn bring back to mind the �iconic� event of 9/11 attributed to Islamist Arabs.

Details: the professor used the Principle of Past Thresholds: she intended to induce the reader (s) to form a preconceived, positive judgment based on previous indoctrinations positing that violence in Iraq is solely �Islamic," and that the U.S. is alien to it despite its invasion and occupation of the country. During this process, the professor eliminated all references to the contexts where the violence occurred. Nowhere could you find that Cohn attempted to tie the post-invasion rationale (the �mission�) to terrorism and tactics by the occupiers to secure Iraq for the imperialist interests of the United States.

Zionist Academia

Under the deceiving title, �Sergio Vieira De Mello: victim of terror or, U.S. foreign policy?� professor Marjorie Cohn (Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego) wrote a classic piece of duplicitous Zionist literature. On one hand, Cohn earnestly criticized Bush�s invasion of Iraq as the cause of De Mello�s death. On the other, she advanced several political pre-conclusions on the issue of Iraq�s occupation and Arab �terrorism� that automatically nullified her criticism and intrinsically justified the war.

The following are selected quotes from Cohn�s argument (I added Italics to all relevant passages):

• One month short of his return to Geneva, Mr. de Mello was buried alive in rubble from a suicide truck bomber who targeted the United Nations in Baghdad.
  
  
• Until Bush unleashed �almost biblical� firepower on Iraq, al Qaeda was not operating there. Yet since the U.S. /U.K. became the occupying power, Iraq has become fertile ground for outside jihadis. Many Saudi Arabian Islamists have crossed the border into Iraq to prepare for a holy war against the U.S./U.K. forces, according to The Financial Times.
  
  
• The Arab satellite television channel al-Arabiya broadcast a statement purportedly from al Qaeda, which urged Muslims around the world to travel to Iraq to fight the U.S. occupation, and claimed that recent attacks on U.S. forces had been carried out by jihadis.
  
  
• Osama bin Laden has long decried the United States� role in the first Gulf War, the punishing sanctions against the people of Iraq.
  
  
• In the twisted minds of the terrorists who likely executed the worst attack on a U.N. civilian operation in its 58-year history, the United States and the United Nations are linked

Analysis

From title to argument, Cohn�s article is deceptive. For instance, in the title she juxtaposed two political concepts (terror vs. U.S. foreign policy) that enjoy neither common foundation nor adversarial polarity. That is, her rhetorical question did not present clearly defined subjects such as, for example, U.S. foreign policy vs. the Palestinian issue.

Discussion: Terror is an abstract term; as such, it could mean a variety of things from the simplest sensation of fear to the most complex: paralyzing anxiety. Cohn, therefore, wanted to achieve an ambitious objective: using induction, she aimed at leading the reader to read the word �terror� as �Arab terror." Ultimate purpose: if that happens, the reader would actually read the word, �terror� as �terrorism," or at least, interchange them.

But the meaning of terror differs from that of terrorism. As a term, terrorism is a political definition that evolved from the ideologies of Zionism and imperialism to depict their adversaries (examples: the IRA, Basques, Palestinians, Arabs, Chechens, etc.) Besides, while terrorism in the general sense accepted today is a concrete action of physical violence by groups with political cause but without relation to any specific state, the foreign policy of a nation, on the other hand, is a set of rationalized guidelines expressing the ideological bent of the ruling elites toward another nation.

Because terrorism could also be 1) a domestic occurrence in any country, and 2) foreign but of unknown national origin, then why did Cohn juxtapose such an abstract concept of violence (terror) to the foreign policy of the United States? Explanation: Cohn�s wider objective appeared to be two-fold: 1) imply that the �terrorism� she was talking about meant only foreign terrorism; implicitly, �Arab� and �Islamic� terrorism� and, 2) U.S. wars against the Arab and Muslim states are a response to that �terrorism.�

Certainly, an alternative linguistic model to Cohn�s deceptive title exists. Had she really wanted to be a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq without Zionism lurking in her thought, she could have opted for a provocative yet cogent title such as: Sergio Vieira De Mello: victim of Islamic terrorism or U.S. war of aggression against Iraq? That did not happen -- she just juxtaposed evil (terror) vs. good (U.S. foreign policy). Forcefully, because the concept of war to implement colonialism is not a specific matter of foreign policy, Cohn, therefore, intentionally misled the reader by incongruent political inference.

Consequently, Cohn intended to send a concealed message of indoctrination. This is how she did it: she implicitly suggested a link between the attack on the U.N. and the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation. Method: she described the attack against the U.N. as carried out by �a suicide truck bomber.�

With the insertion of the term, �suicide bomber (often used by Israel, the West, and the United States to describe Palestinian military operations against the Israeli occupation of what remained of historical Palestine), Cohn managed to establish two defining parameters:

• First: Arab Muslims are a bunch of fanatics who �commit suicide to kill their intended victims.�
  
  
• Second, because of the Israeli and American propaganda that depicts self-sacrificing (technically a form of warfare) attacks against the settler state are, therefore, acts of �terrorism." It follows that by implication and by direct suggestion, Cohn implied that the attack against the United Nations was �inevitably� an Arab �terrorist� attack. Hence, the subliminal message: occupied Iraq is bustling with �terrorists."

Hundreds of American and European writers and politicians influenced by or affiliated with Zionism struggled to limit the concept of self-sacrifice as a form of war, to Islamic fanaticism. This inference is bogus, ideologically motivated, and a precise instrument of psychological warfare against Arabs and Muslims.

Let us examine the issue of �suicide bombing.� Because the United States and Israel have been engaging in wars of aggression against the Arabs since Britain and the West installed Israel in 1948, then we must ask a question: is self-sacrifice in war an ethical calamity? Remember, we are not dealing here with suicide as a product of psychological meltdown by individual(s), but as a means of war.

A quote from a militarist website could help. Wrote Gerald W. Thomas, �While Japan apparently did not use suicide tactics at Pearl Harbor, we know of their use of the Kamikaze later in the war. One historian stated that by the end of WWII: 7,465 Kamikazes flew to their deaths; 120 US ships were sunk, with many more damaged; 3,048 allied sailors were killed and anther 6,025 wounded. [Italics added]

As you can see from these figures, Japanese attackers (or, as per the trend today, �suicide-bombers�) did not die for nothing. In military terms, instead of being killed by the enemy�s bullets and bombs, they chose to die while killing enemy soldiers and destroying their military arsenals. My point: suicide bombing is a form of warfare, and as such, it does not relate to any form of fanaticism.

If Arabs of Islamic or Christian faith in Palestine (or elsewhere) choose to fight a militarily superior enemy in that way (since they possess no jetfighters or artillery), then which is the cause that would make one choose that form of war: 1) religious belief, 2) psychological imbalance, or 3) the innate need to be free from foreign occupation?

I submit that the �need to be free from foreign occupation� is the only motive. (In my reading of the American literature on Japanese Kamikazes, I never came across the suggestion that American writers and historians considered such acts by Japanese soldiers as Shinto fanaticism, although, many point out to the Kamikaze�s unquestioned obedience to military orders and devotion to the emperor.

In the case of Arab Palestinians who attack Israeli soldiers and settlers using that form of warfare, Israeli and western propaganda depicted such acts as a product of Muslim fanatics who die in that way to �earn a place in heaven.�

This is rubbish. I never read in the Muslim Quran that God promised heavens to those who fight Zionism and Imperialism. Instead, the Quran is full with allusion of heavens to those who die for the cause of God. But Palestinians in Gaza who battle the Israelis because they destroyed their homes are definitely not fighting for God or his Word. They are fighting the Israelis for two reasons: 1) to be free from the Israeli occupation, and 2) to recover their natural rights on the land.

A question: why does the axis Israel-United States consider warfare by the F-series jetfighters and stealth bombers as civilized, while it treats warfare by self-sacrificing attackers a form of fanaticism?

Propaganda supplies the answer: describe the attack as suicide, and then attribute it to an assumed religious fanaticism of Arab Muslims. Does that work? So far, the strategy has worked, but only as far as it concerns the intended recipients: the uninformed, the indifferent, and the rigid ideologue, alas, the majority!

Now, if Yehod Olmert, Tony Blair, Jack Chiraque, and George Bush do not want to see the Arabs die by self-sacrifice while fighting the Israeli occupiers of Palestine or the American occupiers of Iraq, would they like them to stay in their homes so the U.S. and Israeli jets can bomb them to ashes? With this in mind, let us analyze the major themes advanced by Cohn:

One: Cohn deliberately falsified events: a suicide truck bomber did not attack the U.N. compound, but a truck detonated with remote control destroyed it. Even CNN (the audio-video bugle of Zionism beside Fox Network) could not lie about what happened. In its dispatch from Iraq on August 20, 2003, CNN reported, �Sergio Vieira de Mello, a veteran U.N. official appointed to the post in May, was killed when a bomb-laden cement truck exploded beneath the window of his office in the Canal Hotel at about 4:30 p.m. [12:30 p.m. GMT; 8:30 a.m. EDT].

Two: the dispatch continued with the following, �Given the location of the bomb, Vieira de Mello could have been the target of the attack, said Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq.�

Three: as you can see, CNN and Paul Bremer did not speak of a suicide bomber, but of a concrete truck laden with explosives with the inference that someone detonated it by remote control.

Four: as a curiosity, it is not clear as to why Cohn employed the phrase �almost biblical� to the U.S. bombardment of Iraq and placed it between quotation marks. Possible explanation: she aimed at involving biblical mythologies on the war against Iraq to appeal to Christian Zionists.

Five: Cohn was categorical when she stated that, �Iraq has become fertile ground for outside jihadis." In analyzing this statement, I must first clarify matters of language. When the U.S. and Israel refer to Arab Muslims who actively engage in the opposition of the combined American- Israeli imperialism in the Arab Middle East, the term of preference is �Jihadis� [plural of Jihadi]. The imperialist usage of this word implies abomination as if that word is some sort of �evil� in the Bush-esque tradition.

However, the word �Jihadi� does not exist in Arabic as a noun; but, if pronounced in that way, it does exist as a compound possessive, meaning �my struggle." The correct noun is �Mujahid.� But, the noun �Mujahid� derives from the verb, �yujahid� which means, �to struggle."

A question: why do imperialist opinion makers consider the struggle (Jihad) against U.S.-Israeli imperialism, colonialism, Zionism, domination, and occupation, an abomination? To emphasize the nature of this question, let us make this example: if an Arab country would invade Israel, the Israeli society would defend itself against this invading army on two levels: 1) as Zionist, Jewish (secular or religious -- including fanatics), and 2) as an Israeli in term of citizenship. If this sounds logical, then where is the problem when the Iraqi society defends itself against foreign invaders on two levels: 1) Muslim or Christians (secular or religious -- including fanatics), and 2) as Iraqi citizens?

Next, we shall discuss the concept of Jihad as used by Cohn and relate it to the struggle against colonialism. This is very important, because, among other things, the U.S. called Zarqawi, a �ruthless Jihadi�

Next: Part 11 of 23

B.J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American anti-war activist. Email: bjsabri@yahoo.com

Previously published