orchestrated indignation
Writer Gamal Ghitani suspects the American intelligence agency CIA of "having fabricated and put the (Berg) images on the Internet to make people forget the scandal of torture in Abu Ghraib prison and hide the roots of evil which lie in the occupation, oppression and extermination of man in Iraq and in Palestine."
He told AFP: "Violence generates violence. The region is in this infernal cycle. I reject these visions of horror. But to stop the violence is the responsibility of the strongest."
Sayed Mahmud, in charge of the cultural pages of Al Ahram Al Arabi newspaper, said publication of the torture pictures was "a deliberate act by the Americans to terrorise Iraqi resistance, showing it the most hideous face of the occupier. It's a psychological campaign."
"Repetition of scenes of violence in Iraq and in Palestine, each time going a further degree in horror, banalises violence so it becomes an almost normal act, which is in the interest of the United States and Israel," he added. Novelist Mohammad Boussati also questions the authenticity of the Internet film showing the beheading of Nicholas Berg.
Jordan Times/AFP May.13.04
