Amr Mohammed Al-Faisal

The news of the US soldiers’ torture of Iraqi prisoners has been greeted by a chorus of disapproval from the Western media.

But it comes as no surprise for those of us who years ago stopped buying the horse manure the Americans laughingly describe as “truth and honesty”.

The reaction of the US and British press is also one of breathtaking disingenuousness. We are supposed to believe that they are shocked at the behavior of their soldiers. I would like to give a long and loud Alexandrian response to them. Those of you who are Arabs or know Alexandria will understand exactly what I mean.

Hypocrisy, it seems, is a tool greatly favored by the West in its dealings with other people.

It has treated their prisoners in most conflicts in which it has been involved with great brutality and savagery. The British in their failed attempts to invade Afghanistan had the habit of lashing Afghan prisoners to the mouths of their cannons and then firing them.

Let us not forget that it was the British, too, who invented concentration camps.

To be fair, we must admit that Westerners are equally savage with one another. For example, during World War II, 50,000 to 60,000 German prisoners of war died in Allied (US and British) prison camps due to willful neglect and abuse.

During the Vietnam War tens of thousands of Vietcong prisoners were tortured and killed. They were not counted as being killed by the Americans because ostensibly they were in the care of the puppet Republic of South Vietnam.

The prison camps were, however, supervised by the Americans, who also ran their interrogations there.

Today, we can only imagine the horrors the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay must be undergoing — such horrors that many of them, though devout Muslims, have tried to commit suicide in order to escape.

Gen. Karpinski, who is in command of the Iraqi prisons, said something which brought goose bumps to my skin. She said that she had no idea what was going on in the prison because the interrogations were carried out by another branch of the military; military intelligence, to be precise.

This is precisely what German Wehrmacht officers said after World War II when they were questioned by Allied prosecutors about their conduct toward Allied prisoners. The Wehrmacht officers blamed the SS for all the torture that went on in their prisons. So it is now the turn of the US version of the Wehrmacht to blame the US version of the SS for these abuses.

Notice too how the Westerners are now saying that it was all the act of a teeny-weeny, microscopic minority which in no way reflects upon the fundamental decency of all Westerners. While if a small group of Arabs committed an atrocity of any kind then every one of us, including our women and children, is a horrible beast. Suddenly everything, from the way we look to the way we eat, walk, talk or even dress is an affront to the delicate and refined sensibilities of the West.

This hullabaloo will soon be over. Everything will be forgotten within a week at the most.

The Iraqis will continue to suffer torture and abuse as if none of this had happened.

But we will not forget.

I want all my Arab readers to take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Relax.

Have a cup of tea, or coffee if that is what you prefer. You see, revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

Our friends and allies the Americans have a saying, which I believe we should make our motto. “Don’t get mad. Get even.”