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Al-Ra'i Opinion By Fahed Al-Fanek The crime committed yesterday morning with the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in front of his house in the heart of Amman was not directed against the U.S., but against Jordan’s image and reputation as a country that enjoys security and where foreigners need no special protection. We criticize U.S. policies towards the region every day, We have been especially critical of the blind U.S. bias in favor of Sharon’s practices which gives Sharon’s bloody hands free reign to repress innocent Palestinians living under an unjust occupation for the last 35 years. We have also criticized the siege imposed on the Iraqi people and U.S. threats to wage war against Iraq. Criticizing the U.S. however is one thing, and taking the life of an American a totally different matter. The former is acceptable politics, the latter is unacceptable terrorism. If the assassination was meant to damage Jordan’s strong relations with the U.S., then this will never happen, because the criminal hand that committed this crime cannot be Jordanian and does not represent the Jordanians. Moreover, the U.S. realizes that the Jordanian government and its people condemn violence and terrorism regardless of its reasons and motives. The strong ties between Jordan and the U.S. were not established yesterday. They have been built over a long period, and serve Jordan’s interests first. Moreover, Jordan has deployed these good relations in the service of Arab causes, especially in Palestine and Iraq. None of the terrorist operations committed during the past years and decades have led to the results that the terrorists intended, On the contrary, they have always led to the complete opposite. The Arabs and the Muslims have been paying the price of Osama bin Laden’s terrorism for a long time now. The struggling Chechen people are paying the price of the recent terrorism in Moscow. Even responding to Israeli terrorism in kind, is depriving the Palestinian people from the international sympathy they deserve as an unarmed people subjected to aggression and fighting for their freedom and liberation. Not a single Jordanian was happy because of this contemptible crime. We are sure that the security forces will be able to arrest the perpetrators of the crime and bring them to justice. Still, Amman remains more secure than Washington, where for many long and difficult days, the security forces were unable to stop the killings being perpetrated by a crazed sniper. |
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