- After a week of cliff-hanging uncertainty in which we
waited with growing fear of the outcome, the self-labeled al Qaida terrorists
in Saudi Arabia took the life of Paul Johnson. It was done in a crude show
of the absolute power a small group of determined insurgents can wield
over a defenseless individual. Acts of terrorism have escalated in our
time toward this level of inhuman brutality. This was the second brutal
murder of a hostage in the past two months and the fourth since US forces
went into Afghanistan to search, unsuccessfully it proved, for al Qaida
founder Osama bin Laden. One can surely say in anger, as did the father
of Nicholas Berg, "My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald
Rumsfeld. But Paul Johnson happened to be an American in Saudi Arabia,
and an asset to that country at a time when Saudi political stability may
be coming apart. He was caught in the crossfire. His death raises serious
questions about the struggles for power that unsettle Saudi Arabia as well
as other Middle East countries and about America,s role in them.
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- A number of writers on Middle East affairs have attempted
to depict the political struggles of this region as part of a "clash
of civilizations, a clash between western modernism and traditional, fundamentalist
Islam. Such a label is basically a cheap shot that overplays the intrinsic
merits of western values while belittling the significance of Islamic cultures
and the concerns of their peoples. But the most serious effect of the cheap
shot is that it keeps us from any real understanding of what happened to
Paul Johnson as well as what can happen to other Americans if things go
on as they have.
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- Paul Johnson died because he was seen by his captors
as a symbol of the role the United States has played for close to three
generations in sustaining an undemocratic and repressive regime. It is
ironic that a country with the world,s largest exportable oil reserves
sold its products to the world,s most powerful democracy, but used the
proceeds with our implicit blessings to maintain a small and powerful oligarchy.
The unwillingness of that oligarchy to change, to respond to the needs,
desires and convictions of its large and poor masses, coupled with the
insensitivity of the United States to those feelings, is the reason Paul
Johnson died.
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- It is an error of fact to simply blame his death on al
Qaida, as both Saudi and American officials now are doing. Following that
scenario, Saudi officials reported today that they have killed Saudi al
Qaida leader, Abdul Aziz al-Moqrin, as well as three members of his group.
They were the named perpetrators of Johnson,s death. If American and other
officials and the public accept this report as final, then the Saudis certainly
will do the same. But the larger truth is that Saudi princes will go on
ruling the country and refusing to accommodate the wishes of the people.
That will continue to feed the frustrations of the country,s poor and unrepresented
masses. Some will become terrorists. Other innocent people will be victims.
Our country will be blamed. Paul Johnson will have died in vain.
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- The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer
of the US Department of State. He will welcome comments at wecanstopit@charter.net
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