The War Americans Don't See- A NY Times Article

[sassa]

The War Americans Don't See

By RAMI G. KHOURI

The Arab press — like Arab public opinion as a whole — predominantly opposes the British and American attack on Iraq, and does not hesitate to say so in its front page headlines, articles and photographs. Yet the press is neither monolithic nor uniformly anti-American.

The samples, from front pages this week in the Arabic-language (and in Algeria's case, French-language) press, demonstrate that the United States and the Arab world do see a different war unfolding. But the front pages of leading newspapers in and around the Arab world include both American and Iraqi perspectives, and feature dramatic photographs that show United States forces as both aggressors and humanitarians. One recent front page photo even showed an Iraqi civilian pouring tea for an American soldier.

More common, though, are images of dead and maimed Iraqi children, parents wailing over the coffins of relatives killed by American bombings, extensive damage of Iraqi civilian buildings and Iraqi civilians being humiliated by American and British troops. Sometimes, an image that would get an innocuous description in an American newspaper is given a more sinister interpretation in the Arab press.

Coverage tends to mirror ideology. The quality regional press like Asharq al Awsat and Al Hayat, edited in London and printed throughout the Middle East, are the most balanced. More ideological papers with narrow readerships reflect the sentiments of their financial backers and tend to cater to the nationalistic, political and emotional views of their audiences.

The tone of opinion columns and editorials is heavily anti-American. Only occasionally do Arab writers, like Ghassan Tueini in Beirut's An Nahar, call for the end of Saddam Hussein and his regime ( and that is coupled with a rejection of American occupation). That view cuts against the grain of widespread anti-American sentiments that dominate Arab public opinion, except in Kuwait, where support for Iraqi regime change is high.

Like their audience, the Arab world's newspapers are angry, nuanced, multifaceted, passionate and argumentative. The complexity of imagery reflects several trends. Arab and Western satellite television, FM radio and the Internet have vastly expanded the range of news and views available to the average Arab. Any credible newspaper that hopes to compete with these comprehensive sources of information must provide more complete and balanced fare, or it will quickly be discredited as biased and unreliable. Arabs are increasingly tired of being lied to and presented with only half of reality, and their press is starting to reflect this.

The press also is starting to reflect fast-changing Arab attitudes, as more and more people in this region criticize both American military attacks and the tradition of autocratic Arab regimes that have caused so much waste and destruction in modern times. One antidote to the cumulative catastrophes that have plagued the modern Arab world is truth and intellectual balance, and the press is also beginning to reflect this important demand as well.

RAMI G. KHOURI is executive editor of The Daily Star, a Beirut newspaper. The headlines and captions were translated by R. Shareah Taleghani from the Arabic.

[mr mahs]

1st- The ny. times has been scrutinized for it's one sided view. I was miami for the conference and only had access to CNN, BBC and got the N.Y. times delivered to my hotel room. Reading the times it looked like we were losing the war...

2nd. The article was written by a author in Beirut who does not make one reference to the proven fact that sadam is responsible for most of the bombing and killing of innocent Iraqi's..

The tomahawk and other ordinance are designed not to explode if thrown of course..The killing of innocent Iraqi's and blaming it on the U.S. is SADAM'S only way of dealing with the us...

I will say it agin why don't you condemn the actions of the Iraqi regime instead of saying that America is the infidel?????