Blowing the Whistle of Just War in the Middle East

The Middle East is in a state of wrath with a perplexing confusion, though both conservatives and liberals manipulate media to project solely their own perspectives. The situation is further jeopradized with the use of both parties of a just war theory approach to entangle news media in the struggle to their own detriment. Besides, Arab media that is generally quasi-governmental distort news coverage in ways that advance government agendas that have further enhanced and reinforced the current hawkish extremism instead of fostering tolerance.  It is important that the problems of the Arab media result
from several factors:

a weak economic base, with high costs of
production and printing; heavy political patronage; cultural
fragmentation; geographic concentration; and low credibility and
prestige. In addition, Arab media laws and regulations are unclear,
which has contributed to the media’s subjugation to dictatorial
government as well as their low standing outside the Arab world. 

 

"Our fear of speaking out has become the terrorists’ fifth column."                                 Editorial in Rose al- Yussef, the Egyptian weekly (February 2007)   Such extremism appalls deeds through media platforms under the name of religion, by killing others and speading notions of hate mongles and xenophobia. of the Arab world against the United States and the pro-Western Arab regimes, while noisy and visible in some countries. A deep anger lingers on the war-hungry have successfully manipulated public opinion, the complacency with which the media simply capitulated to the generals, the utter self-righteousness with which "leaders" and "experts" turned the enemy into an apocalyptic evil. The Just War Theory has become the common dominator in any kind of soci-political and religious conflicts in the region. Such just war has its own dynamnics; new purposes, which were not heard of before. At this point, after years of contrasting and overlapping just wars, it became only "natural" for the public to ask, "then, what?" The answer involves a regional arrangement to secure "peace and stability." But peace and stability for whom and from whose point of view? For the poor Arab masses? For the Palestinians? For social integrity or for the elite interests? Who will rule in the near future the secular ideas or religious ones such as the Muslim Brotherhood or even would be the religous extremist state under Al-Qeda? 

The Just War Theory upholds war as a "humanitarian operation". However, it serves to camouflage the real objectives of the military operations, while providing a moral and principled image to the invaders. In its contemporary version, it has become a clash between orientalism and occidentalism. One one hand, the western interpretation calls for military intervention on ethical and moral grounds against "rogue states" and "Islamic terrorists", while the extreme fundemantalism movements call for a real Islamic state that stops the western civilizing missions in the Middle East.

 

In 2001, Islamic terrorists incinerated thousands of innocent individuals with a cause that has been internationally labelled as the "Holy War", or the "Just War" that has requestioned the need for overwhelming retaliation against whomever was responsible for these atrocities, directly or indirectly. But most importantly, it was an alarming twist that conjured up the emotions felt on 9/11, which emphasized the danger of using media in promoting the “simplistic” desire for revenge and cast aside the “complexity” of the factors. Surprisingly, such "Just War Theory" was advocated by adverseries in opposite directions creating a real a media hostile effect that prmotes news frames of "egalitarian deveils".

 It is eveident that there are two wars going on in the Middle East. One is the military conflict and the other is the media mobilization affair. While the media covers falling bombs and fleeing civilians, and from time to time puts a human face on the agony of a war so far directed mostly at civilians, it rarely covers its own reporting with anything like a self-critical eye. The Arab media has emphasized the inability to process the crisis, with charges of bias on all sides, the media itself has become a battleground of warring narratives and interpretations. The question is not just how to know what’s true, but what you need to know to put rapidly changing events into context in order to make sense of them? The Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk said in his book, “They’re Just Like Human Beings” that language and framing are critical in dealing with media and just war because it always starts with the choice of words to use: terrorist or freedom fighter? Peace process or pacification process? Everybody is accused of trying to manipulate the news and get their version of the story across. Hence, this bias debate masks the way the media war is fought by shadowing its mechanism in pounding cell phone towers and TV station antennas. 

For example, possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central to the western powers’ justifications for invading and occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq. The "war on terrorism" and the notion of "preemption" are predicated on the right to "self defense." In contrast, Al-Qeda bombs civilians even inside the Arab states and threatens of fueling a global wor, then releases video messages to announce is intentions. But in both situations, they define "when it is permissible to wage war": jus ad bellum.

 

This approach serves to convince the publics in the two campiagns that the enemy is "evil" and that they are fighting for a "just cause". More generally, the Just War Theory in its modern day version is an integral part of war propaganda and media disinformation, applied to gain public support for a war agenda. Both sides of the conflict use communication platforms in shaping the information environment that was fomenting the "culture of death" that ennobled suicide bombers and the cult of terrorism.

 

The Arab public seems no longer able to remain silent about what is happening to its religion as well as its self-identity. Some secular views believe that the "problem is within us".In answer to the incendiary fatwa by the Muslim Brotherhood urging attacks on American soldiers in Iraq, Arabs have stepped forward to renounce the call in the severest and most self-reflective terms.

 

Although activities in Iraq remain the centerpiece of today’s attitudes about the United States in the region, recent shifts seem to be taking place. Libya, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, even Saudi Arabia do not share a single perspective, except the suspicion about U.S. motives for being in Iraq and the belief that the United States supports Israel against all Arabs, everywhere, at all times. According to polling by Zogby International, numbers show a drastic downward slide of Arab attitudes about the United States from April 2002 to June 2004. Hostility toward the United States among Moroccans, who have a seemingly less ferocious perception about U.S. intrigues, has risen from a disapproving (61%) in 2002 to (88%) in 2004; Egypt, a more predictable fulminator, from (76%) to (98%).

 

Regimes in the Middle East, whether U.S. allies or not, could not survive actual exposure through media to the will of their populations, especially when the repercussions of the just war media has often led to "one vote, one time," that becomes even worse absent occupation.

 Accordingly, Arab regimes prefered to strike a balance between weaving a web of dissembling that aggravates this situation, and retaining strong control over media.The first panders to the ideological positions of their own threatening insurgency movements in order to remove themselves as targets of jihads, while the second diverts the attention of the public on external factors, rather than their own oppression. 

Media in the Middle East exacerbates these just war perspectives, low-cost access to satellite technology in recent years has resulted in both an explosion of Arab satellite television channels and aggressive competition among them for market share, which in turn has translated into more Arabs having access to real-time information, although they remain predominantly instruments of their governments.

 

In addition, off-shore media in the Arab world operate in collusion with a reigning regional power to maintain the appearance of domestic social concord and the illusion of solidarity among Arab states’ points of view. Meanwhile, they fuel calumny toward the perpetrators of their common "victimization," typically identified as Israel and the United States. Although cracks are beginning to show in the tight state monopoly over media, just war controversies remain a fact of life that affects the whole socital fabric.

 

As Robin Wright explored this argument in the Washington Post "Outlook" article (September 12, 2004),

"it’s hard to imagine political evolution in the next twenty years that does not include the Islamists. They have established legitimacy and a following and you won’t make them disappear overnight by supporting the activities of a small elite of secular modernists…you have to image a political space that has both."

 The just war theory and media must not be dealt with as a clash of civilizations, but rather a defense of shared humanity and a search for common ground, however implausible that may seem now.As Fouad Ajami observed, "For at heart, this war for Islam is one for Muslims to fight. It is for them to recover their faith from the purveyors of terror" (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040920/ 20fouad.htm.).

 

That said, if it is possible to isolate innocent individuals such as dissidents, freedom fighters, and children without military cost, they should not be killed; it is unjust and against one’s rational self-interest to senselessly kill the innocent; it is good to have more rational, pro-America people in the world.