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SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON 9/11 COMMEMORATION 
 
Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "A less safe world" 
 
Chief Editor Ayman Safadi writes on the back-page of independent, 
centrist Arabic daily Al-Ghad (09/11):  "The George Bush 
administration handled the crime of September 11 with a mentality of 
vengeance, and thus turned the entire world into a struggle arena 
and contributed to the creation of an environment that yielded 
thousands of those who are desperate, frustrated and lacking faith 
in the possibility of bringing justice to the oppressed....  The 
world today, unlike what Bush and his media machine are promoting, 
is less safe than what it used to be five years ago.  More seriously 
is that the clash of civilizations and the rejection of the other 
have become in many ways real for which the moderates and the 
proponents of west-east coexistence are paying the price....  The 
war on terrorism failed, and the United States alone bears the 
responsibility of aiding the leader of terrorism, Osama Bin Laden, 
to divide up the world into two and to weaken the voices of 
moderation and reason in the region....  American declared September 
11 a national day.  This date should have been a world day for 
rejecting terrorism and search for justice.  But his opportunity was 
missed by Washington as it exercised unilateralism based on the 
logic of force, the marginalization of others, and the denial of 
rights in a battle that is, by its causes and effects, a global 
one." 
 
-- "Five years and the invasion is continuing" 
 
Columnist Manar Rashwani writes on the op-ed page of independent, 
centrist Arabic daily Al-Ghad (09/11):  "Five years since what 
Al-Qaeda likes to call the 'invasion of Manhattan' and since what 
the U.S. administration likes to call the 'counter' terrorism war, 
it seems that victory is on the side of both these two arch 
enemies....  This however does not mean that there is not a losing 
party that pays the price for the entire thing.  There is, and it is 
those same people that each of Al-Qaeda and the U.S. administration 
claim they supporting and liberating, be that from occupation or 
from dictatorship.  Because of the American invasion of Arab and 
Muslim countries under the pretext of the war on terrorism, with all 
accompanying breaking of international laws and agreements and 
permitting of every inhuman practice, particularly in Guantanamo and 
Abu Ghraib, the United States gave legitimacy that was lacking to 
Al-Qaeda, thus turning from an organization into thought that 
invades the minds of many of Arab and non-Arab Muslims.  And because 
American today seems to be more immune, Al-Qaeda convinced iself 
that it should move its battles to places from which American left 
and to places where America has interests, especially the Arab and 
Muslim world.  Therefore, the United States has completed the cycle 
of invasion that is surrounding the Arab and Muslim people.  Between 
an American invasion and an invasion by Al-Qaeda, and from the 
Manhattan invasion to the American-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, it 
seems that the Arab or Muslim person has the choice of dying at the 
hands of state terrorism that is exercised by America and Israel or 
the one exercised by Al-Qaeda, so much so that it is no longer 
possible or logical to talk about 'war on terrorism', because in 
reality, it is a war on moderations." 
 
-- "Five years on the war on terrorism, what next?" 
 
Columnist Oraib Rantawi writes on the op-ed page of center-left, 
influential Arabic daily Ad-Dustour (09/11):  "The reaping of five 
years of terrorism and war on terrorism that followed the September 
11, 2001 [attacks] reveals a deficiency in achieved results of this 
global war.  The United States that has reaped failure in its 
attempts at taking out Al-Qaeda, eliminating its leadership and 
containing its 'thought' is today witnessing the downfall of its 
projects one after the other in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Bush 
administration is also losing its allies one after the other.... 
The war of Bush and his allies on terrorism has not yet borne fruit, 
and most likely it will not end in winning the hearts and minds of 
the millions of Arabs and Muslim, but rather the contexts and the 
paths of this war have earned the United States and its allies and 
friends more animosity and hatred and have prepared for the birth of 
new generations of terrorists and for new versions of extremist and 
hardline thoughts....  Five years have passed since the 'Manhattan 
invasion', and they were enough to show the sterility of the 
American policies in the Middle East and to expose the 'immoral' 
aspects of that policy.  After all, American values broke in Abu 
Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo and the tens of other secret and 
public prisons, just as the values and morals of the American 
military and political foundation broke in Ramadi, Anbar and 
Falluja.  Five years were enough for the rise and fall of the theory 
of spreading democracy in the Middle East.  The United States that 
came to the Middle East on the ruins of the British-French 
colonialism went back to its coalition with the regimes themselves 
without shedding one tear over the end of the 'Partnership' and the 
downfall of democracy in the Middle East.  The war on terrorism will 
probably lead to the launch of a new wave of terrorism and new 
generations of terrorists.  After all, the causes that led to the 
rise and spread of the phenomenon continue to exist, indeed now more 
than ever before." 
HALE