Four American Terrorists Rape Iraqi Minor Girl

Soldier enters pleas in rape-murder case
By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press Writer (July 30, 2008)

A Fort Campbell soldier accused of acting as a lookout while his colleagues attacked and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family pleaded guilty to some lesser offenses Monday as his court-martial began on rape and murder charges.

Pfc. Jesse Spielman pleaded to conspiracy to obstruct justice, arson, wrongfully touching a corpse and drinking.

He still faces trial on the more serious charges in the March 2006 attack on Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and her family. Under military law, a soldier present when a crime occurs can be found guilty if prosecutors can establish that the soldier had prior knowledge.

Three other soldiers have pleaded guilty for their roles in the crimes and received sentences as long as 100 years. Another soldier was discharged from the military before he was charged and could face the death penalty if found guilty in federal court in Kentucky.

Defense attorney Craig Carlson said Spielman's plea to the lesser charges was part of an agreement with prosecutors that involved crimes that Spielman had already confessed to committing during interviews with military investigators.

A military judge was expected to begin seating a jury for his court-martial on the rape and murder charges later in the day.

Defense attorneys have argued that Spielman had no prior knowledge of the attack. On Monday, they filed a motion requesting immunity for members of the Army's combat stress team, which was attached to Spielman's unit.

Carlson argued that questionable practices and undocumented distribution of medication to soldiers could have left them in a mental state in which they were unable to recognize the nature of the crime. The Department of Justice declined to grant immunity in June, but defense attorneys say the information is critical to their arguments.

The defense also filed a motion to exclude nine photos taken of the victims the day after they were killed.

Prosecutors have argued the photos provide crucial information about the crime.

"These photos painfully demonstrate that she is dead," said Maj. William Fischbach of photos of the 14-year-old girl. He said the position of her body in the photos suggested she had been raped.

"Taken together, these crime scene photos are the government's only evidence that a murder happened," Fischbach said.

Two soldiers have told investigators that Spielman, 22, of Chambersburg, Pa., knew of the plan to rape the girl in Mahmoudiya, a village 20 miles south of Baghdad, and was present when they set the details over swigs of whiskey.

During their courts-martial, Spc. James P. Barker and Sgt. Paul E. Cortez testified they took turns raping the girl while then-Pfc. Steven D. Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister. They said Green, who is accused of being the ringleader, shot Abeer in the head after raping her. The girl's body was then set on fire with kerosene to destroy the evidence, according to testimony and military documents.

Green has pleaded not guilty in federal court to charges including murder and sexual assault. No trial date has been set.

Barker said Spielman came to the home knowing of the plan. Pfc. Bryan L. Howard, who stayed at the checkpoint to monitor radios, testified during a hearing in March that he overheard Spielman and the others discuss the rape beforehand. Howard pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the rape and murder and was sentenced to 27 months.

Cortez and Barker pleaded guilty to rape and murder; Barker was sentenced to 90 years and Cortez to 100 years.

Read Washington Post's story of these 4 terrorists >>

Read Wikipedia entry >>

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George Bush's Mantra

Extracted from Steven Weber's Sat Jul 21, 4:57 PM ET titled "George W Bush=Who Beg Surge"

.... And the assembled facts say the infrastructure for this change has already been laid right in front of our chewing mouths and glassy eyes and "oh-you're-just-another-mincing-liberal-it-could-never-happen-here!!" attitudes, its crystalline structure expanding---doubling and doubling again---to create the perfect environment for a capitalist/fascist regime to thrive and that's not being alarmist and here are the pieces. Let's spill them onto the floor:

a wall to keep out "immigrants and terrorists";
surveillance cameras on every corner;
an ideologically aligned Supreme Court;
a president who signs statements nullifying the legislation that has just passed;
a television-dependent, consumer-obsessed population;
the concentration of information outlets under a single authority;
the marginalization of the middle class and the busting of unions;
the suspension of habeas corpus;
denying the people access to information about government activity by asserting "executive privilege";
the blurring of the lines between science and religion;
a faceless, terrifying enemy;
a unilaterally prosecuted War Without End.

Taken at their face, these are disparate elements, each one of them brought into being through reasonably articulate agents, trumpeted within hallowed and respected institutions. And each of them has come under fire as deeply flawed, inefficient or plain weird.

But spill those tiles onto the floor. Put them all together. See what they spell.

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We repudiate terrorism

Wed Jul 11, 12:21 AM ET

By Ibrahim Hooper

In the wake of the recent terror plot in Britain, American Muslims are once again being asked why we are "silent" on the issue of terrorism committed in the name of Islam.

It is a valid question, but one that frustrates those of us who repeatedly and consistently condemn terrorism in all its forms.

I recall the tragic day of Sept. 11, 2001, when a coalition of leading Muslim groups issued what was perhaps the first statement by any organization condemning the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

Since 9/11, I have personally written dozens of statements condemning terrorism in all its forms, whether suicide bombings in the Middle East, terror attacks in London and Madrid, the killing of Christian missionaries in Yemen, or a shooting at a Jewish center in Seattle.

In the past six years, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has coordinated the release of a fatwa (Islamic religious ruling) repudiating terrorism and religious extremism, initiated an online petition drive called "Not in the Name of Islam," and distributed a related TV public service announcement that has been seen by some 10 million viewers nationwide.

This repeated repudiation of terrorism is not prompted by outside pressure, but by the basic Islamic principle that no one has the right to take innocent life.

CAIR officials and representatives of other major American Muslim groups regularly reinforce Islam's rejection of attacks on civilians when they speak to community and interfaith organizations, media outlets and law enforcement officials.

American Muslims are also working with local, state and national law enforcement agencies to help make our nation more secure.

Yet despite striving daily to remind our fellow Americans that we do repudiate the terrorists who falsely claim to represent Islam, we are still grilled about the Muslim community's "silence" on the issue.

The deadly phenomenon of terrorism will not be eliminated by condemnations alone. A real end to terror will come only when the mainstream followers of all faiths and citizens of all nations work together to marginalize extremists and to build a future based on freedom and justice.

American Muslims stand ready to help build that better future for all our children.

Ibrahim Hooper is national communications director for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties group.

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POLITICAL, NOT RELIGIOUS, ISSUES ARE MOTIVATING TERRORISTS

By Georgie Anne Geyer (Fri Jul 6, 6:02 PM ET)

WASHINGTON -- Did it seem strange to anybody else -- everything seems pretty strange to me these days -- that President Bush used this year's July Fourth celebration to compare our war against Iraq to the American Revolutionary War against England?

Speaking before members of the National Guard and their families in Martinsburg, W.Va., the president painted a grand canvas of considerably exaggerated truthfulness. "We give thanks for all the brave citizen-soldiers of our Continental Army who dropped pitchforks and took up muskets to fight for our freedom and liberty and independence," he told the crowd. "You're the successors of those brave men. ... Like those early patriots, you're fighting a new and unprecedented war."

But there is a secret here that is at the heart and soul of America's wars in our era today -- a secret that, if we would let it, could solve the dilemma of how to get out of Iraq and the other quicksands we seem to be drawn to.

For if you look closely at the wars America has been fighting lately, they do not so much parallel our fight against the British so long ago as they personify the fact that we are fighting for the pitiful remains of European colonialism. How foolishly and expensively we replaced the French colonialists in Vietnam! Even in a doomed place such as Somalia, we waded bravely ashore, replacing (in the Somali mind) the hated Italian conquerors, who eventually had the good sense to go home.

But Iraq is the worst of all, for there we are seen by most Iraqis -- who repeat this sentiment over and over in polls and interviews -- as the descendants of the British colonialists of the 1920s and '30s. Somebody, somehow, forgot to tell Washington before we ever went into Iraq that the British lost more men in the Mesopotamian campaign of the 1920s than in all the rest of the Middle East. Equally, much of the Iranian hatred of America also comes from our moving in on the Brits' shirttails.

This reality has not escaped many of our best analysts. In a speech last fall at the International Center for Journalists, columnist Fareed Zakaria told the group, shaking his head sadly: "We may not be a great empire, but we're a great nation-state. But we can't continue insisting upon playing the role of the last British empire -- over and over again."

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser to President Carter, carries this analysis to address the question that obsesses us as a nation: What truly motivates the "terrorists," the insurgents, the suicide bombers, all those people who apparently hate us for one reason or another?

The commonly accepted knowledge in the administration and in the Pentagon is that this is a religious war, that these men blow themselves up for God. Not at all, says Brzezinski: "These are political questions. They may seen religious, but in reality they are directly related to our policies. Look at who they are against: the U.S., the Brits, the Israelis. We are seen as the new British colonialists, just as in Vietnam we were seen as the continuation of French colonialism."

Actually, all the investigations into who the terrorists are and what inspires them are clear about the fact that their primary inspiration is not religious, but political. The study of 300 suicide bombers made by professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago found that virtually none of them was religiously inspired; they were communists, socialists, Muslim Brothers, Arab nationalists, but above all, they were inspired by Western occupation and dominance of their lands.

Last week, at a meeting at the New America Foundation, CNN's seasoned terrorist specialist, Peter Bergen, impatiently told a group of us after someone brought up the old question of Islamic madrassah schools inspiring terrorists: "Of all the terrorists that I have known, almost none were from the madrassahs. If they were educated, they were usually from Western universities; they were engineers ..."

And they are doctors.

Instead of confusing us, the fact that the suspects captured in Britain this last week after attempting car bombings were doctors actually confirms the "political inspiration" theory. We might stop to recall that it was doctors in Hitler's concentration camps who performed the most frightful operations on the inmates (remember the grotesque Dr. Josef Mengele?), and that Soviet doctors stood obediently at the right hand of the communist state, performing every possible horror.

In today's world, for these "doctors" from the Middle East, the craft that they learn in London or Yorkshire or wherever has very little link with their private emotional motivation. Indeed, the Brits who captured them said all had been radicalized by the Iraq War -- that same war we think we're fighting to keep ourselves safe from terrorism.

Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, showed some good sense this week in his first confrontation with terrorist attacks. In sharp contrast to his predecessor Tony Blair, who egged W. on with visions of new colonial grandeur, Brown took what was described in London as a "minimalist approach." The episode was a crime, rather than a threat to civilization. The London Times said his poll ratings were "soaring."

It is becoming more and more clear that if anything besides Armageddon is to come out of our present involvement in the Middle East, then we must embrace the political argument while keeping an eye on the religious one -- but swiftly adjust our policies in order to change the situation. Would that we would.

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Profiting at Taxpayer Expense

by Robert Scheer (Wed Jun 27, 3:00 AM ET)

As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American — and many more Iraqi — lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush's running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich.

This week's evidence of the continuing corruption of Halliburton and its subsidiaries profiteering from contracts costing American taxpayers an unbelievable $22 billion — stems from a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The report, only one of many about Halliburton's recently severed subsidiary KBR, focuses on work done in Baghdad's super-secure Green Zone. While parent company Halliburton insults U.S. taxpayers by relocating its headquarters to the tax shelter of Dubai, subsidiary KBR has been spun off to focus more directly on the American military contracts that form the core of its operations.

Those operations have already produced a litany of condemnation by congressional and administration oversight bodies, and the June 25 report hardly details the company's most egregious activities. However, the Green Zone, the site of this latest instance of taxpayer fleecing, is instructive because, safely removed from the risks of battle, it deprives these war profiteers of their favorite excuse: that construction in a battle zone is inherently more costly. While KBR's Green Zone shenanigans covered by this report may seem small in comparison to the enormous waste attendant to the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq, they are illustrative of the devil-may-care feeding frenzy that has fueled the American effort.

The corrupt reconstruction project has left a wasteland of failed energy, water, educational and political reform plans. As report after report details, garbage is not collected, hospitals are not staffed, schools close soon after they are opened, and factories sit idle in shocking refutation of the vaunted efficiency of the United States' political economic model.

KBR's role in this fiasco is easily exposed by a basic Google search, beginning with a stop at the Web site of Henry Waxman, the California congressman who heads up the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Waxman deserves a Medal of Freedom for trying to figure out what happened to the $22 billion that KBR received but are now lost to U.S. taxpayers, as well as to the once hopeful but now bitterly disillusioned Iraqi people. Indeed, six months ago, the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., termed the high level of official corruption in Iraq the "second insurgency," stating that the siphoning-off of U.S. dollars is a major source of funds for the anti-American fighters in the country. It was estimated that last year, upward of $100 million in stolen oil funds went directly to the insurgents. In the context of that horrid record of waste and corruption attendant to the destruction of Iraqi society in which "democratic nation building" transmogrified into fascist mayhem, KBR's antics in the Green Zone seem petty.

But the fact that KBR played loose with our tax dollars even in the safety of the Green Zone is evidence of the company's contempt for the sacrifice of U.S. taxpayers. For example, concerning KBR's mismanagement of the fuel distribution program, the inspector general wrote: "We found weaknesses in KBR's fuel receiving, distributing and accountability processes of such magnitude that we were unable to determine an accurate measure of the fuel services provided." Yet, it was paid for by American taxpayers.

Or, take the extra $4.5 million spent on the company's food service and the cost of billeting 90 percent of KBR personnel in single quarters, as opposed to the doubling-up practiced by regular Army folks.

That was chickenfeed, compared to other examples of taxpayer rip-offs, as revealed in one example by the Army reducing payments to KBR by $19.5 million following Waxman's first "fraud, waste, and abuse hearings." It is hoped that there will be other efforts at forcing accountability for the billions of dollars that have been spent to advertise the efficiency of the United States' free enterprise model to a skeptical Mideast public.

It is claimed by American officials that KBR's accountability issues are being addressed. In one instance cited, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad — a spiraling enterprise well on its way to become a nation-within-a-nation akin to the Vatican in Italy — announced that its personnel would no longer be allowed to bring large bags into the eating halls as a means of avoiding food theft. Such sacrifice for the mission of securing Iraqi freedom.

E-mail Robert Scheer at rscheer@truthdig.com. To find out more about Robert Scheer, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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Independence Day, Really?

by Scott Paul - Wed Jul 4, 2:43 PM ET

While millions of American will be celebrating on the Fourth of July with parades, fireworks and picnics, we should know that the free market in which we live is not truly free, nor does it enhance the freedoms we enjoy as citizens. This Independence Day, take a look at the labels on your bikes, fireworks, grills and even your food, and consider what the future holds for this nation.

Blind faith in the free market has resulted in unsafe consumer products from China on our dinner plates, in our tubes of toothpaste and in our pets' food dishes. It has produced millions of layoff notices for manufacturing workers in our factories -- 49,000 per month since 2000. This blind faith has delayed getting domestically-made armor plating to protect our soldiers in Iraq. And it has piled up record trade deficits, leaving America with a massive debt that will limit the opportunities for our children.

But this isn't a rant against trade. On the contrary, it's a plea for trade that truly benefits everyone: workers, producers, consumers and investors. It's a plea for accountability and for enforcing the existing laws we do have to guarantee safe products and the opportunity for workers and producers in America to compete with those abroad.

Now that the issues of pending free trade agreements and presidential fast-track trade authority have been settled in Congress, the debate about a new trade policy needs to begin among our presidential candidates.

I'd love to hear just one question at an upcoming presidential debate about trade and manufacturing from Brian Williams, Wolf Blitzer or Chris Matthews. But I'm not holding my breath. You are more likely to hear a question about Paris Hilton's jail time -- or Scooter Libby's lack thereof -- than anything focusing on our economic future.

Fortunately, some groups are finding ways to burst through this blockade. The United Steelworkers are hosting a presidential candidates' forum on trade and manufacturing in Cleveland on July 5 and 6. And on July 4, Stand Up For Steel will begin urging Iowa caucusgoers to ask candidates to consider the consequences of our flawed trade policies. Check out their new, amazing ad here.

The point of the Stand Up For Steel ad should resonate with citizens on Independence Day. The American people have become all too aware of the limitations that dependency on foreign sources of energy creates for foreign policy and national security purposes; it makes no sense to exacerbate that problem by depending on China and other nations to supply our critical defense needs. Just as our nation is seeking to achieve energy independence from the Middle East, we also should avoid becoming more dependent on others to supply our national and homeland defense needs.

Our Founding Fathers were visionaries. They shaped policies not only for their time, but for generations to come. All of us would profit if we could only harness that wisdom today.

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Mr. Bush, Tear Down That Curtain!

Anthony D. Romero Wed Jul 4, 1:27 PM ET

July 4th brings thoughts of fireworks, hotdogs, and cold beer, but as you see your ballparks and skylines light up tonight, take a minute to think about another July 4th tradition, the Freedom of Information Act. You might not know this piece of patriotic trivia, but FOIA has been in effect and lighting up our government for exactly 40 years today.

The Act can trace its origins to the time of Joe McCarthy. The relevant background is as follows: In March 1954, newsman Edward R. Murrow set into motion the downfall of the demagogue senator, using McCarthy's own words to show America his dark side. The centerpiece of the historic broadcast was actually a clip of McCarthy browbeating a witness over his one-time association with the "Communist-influenced" ACLU.

Before giving his signature signoff, Murrow warned that McCarthyism was a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself. National security concerns about Soviet espionage and global expansion were building into wildfires of public hysteria. Farmers in the Midwest, socialites in New York -- all were terrified of the Red Menace, a terror made even more acute by the advent of nuclear weapons.

McCarthy was able to exploit the government secrecy that was at its height during his heyday to do his smearing. He could make wild accusations without official repudiation. Damaged by the Murrow broadcast, McCarthy then picked a fight with the Army and was later censured by the Senate. A wreck of a man, he died three years later.

McCarthy's crusade highlighted another creeping problem in post-war America: the dilemma of maintaining government accountability in the face of national security threats -- whether real or exaggerated.

The government was beyond tight-lipped about everything Soviet and everything nuclear. In 1950, G-men literally burned all copies of a Scientific American magazine with articles on H-bomb technology. And the ACLU recognized the danger in the lack of a formal mechanism to maintain open government, especially during times of public hysteria like the McCarthy years.

In 1954, we commissioned a report on the suppression of news and government secrecy, citing especially the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our report called for "greater legal sanction to the public's right of information" from the government.

We ultimately got our wish in the Freedom of Information Act, signed by a reluctant President Johnson on Independence Day 1966, and first implemented 40 years ago today. FOIA is essentially democracy's x-ray. It's the only way that the American people can look into the black-box of government policy making and make sure the government is doing what it says it's doing or should be doing.

FOIA's history is telling. It's the daughter of the Cold War, and McCarthyism's wiser, honorable cousin. It was vastly unpopular in the federal agencies and the White House -- the branch of government with the most to gain from keeping secrets -- and yet unanimously supported in Congress. It shows how a functioning democracy can institute appropriate checks on the government, even during a time of national security crisis.

FOIA's recent history is also instructive. In 1974, after Watergate exposed widespread civil liberties abuses by the intelligence community, Congress amended FOIA, over a presidential veto, to allow the public to request intelligence documents. After that, an additional load of illegal dirty laundry tumbled out of the CIA, the Pentagon and the FBI.

More recently, even with the Bush administration's new restrictions on FOIA requests, ACLU attorneys have aggressively and successfully used FOIA to produce documents on torture at the military prison in Guantánamo Bay. Just last week, we filed our latest FOIA lawsuit demanding information on the abuse of National Security Letters.

Despite these successes, on this Independence Day, FOIA's birthday, we must also be concerned about the health of our open government laws.

Today, the bureaucratic backlog for FOIA requests is crushing. Excessive secrecy connected to 9/11 and the Bush administration's ideological commitment to executive supremacy has rendered the Departments of Defense, Justice and the White House virtual no-FOIA zones.

Just as bad, some requests take decades to process, and agencies often force those requesting information into expensive court battles, only to have the documents released at the 11th hour to avoid losing a case.

Thankfully, a strongly bipartisan group of lawmakers, including notable conservative cosponsors Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), introduced the Open Government Act. Among other things, the bill would require the government to create a tracking system for FOIA requests and would provide greater specificity in how the agencies may redact or exempt documents from disclosure.

Unfortunately, a minority of one has placed a hold on the bill, indefinitely blocking it from further progress in the Senate. Senator Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican with a voting record quite similar to Senator Cornyn, won't let the bill go to a vote.

Reportedly, he has "concerns" with its effect on the Justice Department. I would respectfully suggest that Senator Kyl take a look at the scandal-ridden Gonzales Justice Department.

And as I write this, the clock is also counting down on Senate subpoenas meant to finally shed some light on the executive branch's involvement in that same illegal NSA program.

You can learn more about FOIA, civil liberties and ACLU history in In Defense of American Liberties, the definitive history of the ACLU, written by Samuel Walker.

But the fundamental argument is simple. In the words of President Johnson, "democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation will permit." In times of crisis, the government tends to use "national security" as an all-purpose excuse to prevent the release of embarrassing or politically damaging information.

This is not how it should be. Open government is free government. On this Independence Day, Mr. Bush, tear down that curtain of secrecy.

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Dear George... Happy 4th! Wish You Were Here!

Michael SeitzmanWed Jul 4, 4:00 PM ET

"Instead of seizing this moment, the administration has squandered it. We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence.

Our generation has a chance to reclaim some essential values to show we have grown up before we grow old. When the moment for leadership came, this administration did not teach our children, it disillusioned them. They had their chance. They have not led. We will.

And now [they're party] comes asking for another chance, another shot. Our answer? Not this time. Not this year.

This is not a time for third chances, it is a time for new beginnings.

Greatness is found when American character and American courage overcome American challenges. We will give our military the means to keep the peace, and we will give it one thing more a commander in chief who respects our men and women in uniform, and a commander in chief who earns their respect.

A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam. When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming. [My generation] never saw our nation's greatness in rising wealth or advancing armies, but in small, unnumbered acts of caring and courage and self-denial. Their highest hope, as Robert Frost described it, was 'to occupy the land with character.' And that, 13 generations later, is still our goal: to occupy the land with character.

Our nation's leaders are responsible to confront problems, not pass them on to others. And to lead this nation to a responsibility era, a president himself must be responsible.

My fellow citizens, we can begin again. After all of the shouting, and all of the scandal. After all of the bitterness and broken faith. We can begin again.

The wait has been long, but it won't be long now. A prosperous nation is ready to renew its purpose and unite behind great goals, and it won't be long now. Our country is ready for high standards and new leaders, and it won't be long now. An era of tarnished ideals is giving way to a responsibility era, and it won't be long now.

The night is passing.
And we are ready for the day to come."

George W. Bush
August 3, 2000
Republican National Convention
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Two faces of the Arab street

By Hussain Abdul-Hussain,Tue Jul 3, 4:00 AM ET

Kamal is my Syrian cousin who lives in Damascus. He is a pious Muslim who keeps a low profile. When I decided to Google his name, I was surprised to see that he had made a statement in one of the newspapers denouncing the American war in Iraq and describing the US as a bully.

But I know Kamal, and I know that he admires the West. During our chitchats, his favorite description of the social and economic situation in Syria is "backwardness." He tells me that he would love to move to a "civilized" country where people stand in a queue, where drivers follow the law, and where everyone is "respected" and everything is "clean."

Kamal's statement in the newspaper does not reflect his thought. Rather, it reflects the double-faced character that most of the Arabs and Muslims have to put up, fearing the tyranny they live under.

During my years as a reporter in Beirut, whenever I covered an anti-US protest, I saw most of the protesters trying to hide their faces from cameras. Ask any of them about the reason for doing so, and they will tell you that they do not want to jeopardize getting a visa to the US or to other Western countries.

But those who don't want to risk their visas are the same ones who fear retribution of their ruling regimes, or even their militant peers, if they express any support of the West. These people walk a tightrope. On the one hand, they want to keep their visa prospects high. On the other hand, they want to look as anti-Western as their oppressors want them to look.

The double-face theory explains a good deal of the social behavior of many Arabs. It explains why, even though the majority of Arabs appear to hate America, American multinational franchises are booming in Arab countries.

Whether it is Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King, or KFC, they are all in high demand in the Arab region. Hollywood movies are widely watched. American pop culture is as widespread in the Middle East as it is here in the US. Most Arabs know Ross and Rachel from the TV sitcom "Friends." Many of them know the rapper 50 Cent and often sing his tunes. Many of them strive to enter the US universities mushrooming across the region.

If you ask these Arabs about the dilemma of loving America and hating it at the same time, the most common answer would be: We love America, but we hate its foreign policy.

American foreign policy, however, does not always work against what many of these Arabs want to see. Only a few would oppose the removal of their tyrant.

When American troops first stormed into Baghdad, the most common footage on TV was that of Iraqis hailing the invaders and often praising President Bush. True, there was no throwing of petals and sweets on US troops. But there were no insurgents either. Violence in Iraq did not break out until the third month after the American invasion – once insurgents had grouped themselves and planned their action.

When jubilant Iraqis saw another form of tyranny, that of the insurgents replacing Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, they put on their double-faced characters again.

How do we know what the majority of Iraqis and Arabs feel about America? It's simple. Take the number of insurgents and compare them to that of the Iraqi population. Insurgents are estimated at 15,000 militants, heavily supported and funded by intelligence groups of their neighboring countries. The number, however, is negligible if compared with Iraq's population of 27 million.

Even under Hussein and his 1-million- strong army and intelligence personnel, his entourage would not account for more than 1/27th of the population. That Iraqis hated Hussein is an undisputed fact. Yet they praised him, elected him (Hussein "won" 100 percent of the vote in 2002), and protested against America under him. It was all fear, and part of the double-face strategy.

In any given nation, it takes only a handful of troublemakers to bring everyone to their knees. Iraqi insurgents terrorize the people who are fleeing the country by the thousands. Insurgents coerce the population to look as though they are anti-American. Without them and the support of neighboring intelligence forces, Iraq could have been the strongest democracy in the region and perhaps Operation Iraqi Freedom would have succeeded.

My cousin Kamal loves America, but he is forced to hate her, just like the protesters who hide their faces. There are more than 300 million Arabs, yet only 19 of them were enough to show the world on 9/11 that Arabs and Muslims hate America, an impression that is not necessarily true.

• Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a media analyst, is a former reporter for The Daily Star of Lebanon.

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