Sayyed Fadlullah: Just like the chief rabbi, America considers the Arabs as snakes and insects.

Asked in his weekly seminar the following question: What are the political and moral implications of the American sadistic practices in Iraq?

The Religious Authority Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah said:

One of the most dominant characteristics of the Bush Administration is the arrogant way it looks down on whom it considers hostile, to the extent that it considers it to be natural to violate his civil rights, and even to detain, displace or kill him.

But this does not mean that this Administration is taking a different course than the previous ones.

It is following the same course, but in a more vigorous way that shows a greater contempt for human values, as it was demonstrated by legitimizing the Israeli killing of the Palestinians and by all the atrocities it is committing in Iraq.

Torture has become one of the constant features of American policies. The Bush Administration in particular has mastered this “art” at every level, whether through the practice of physical torture of detainees in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq, or in the air raids that killed civilians and villages in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as collective punishment against tens of thousands of peaceful Afghani and Iraqi citizens.

Such behavior has shown America as hostile to human and civilized values at a time it presents itself to the world as a champion of freedom, justice and human rights….

People are talking about the picture of tortured Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib but what about occupation itself that represents the most severe form of torture…

America has acted in Iraq as a brutal and irrational occupation force that exploits the slogans of freedom and human rights to elongate its occupation and maintain its control on Iraqi oil and other Iraqi resources.

The torture in the American prisons in Iraq is a moral and humanistic scandal by any standard, and one that America bears full responsibility for. It is not an act of certain individuals but rather a product of the general atmosphere the American soldiers and officers are living in… Moreover, such acts of torture were not committed in a secret manner that would prevent the officials in the Defense Department from learning about them which means that the entire Administration is acting in a sadistic way that is a product of a complicated mentality of hatred and malice.

What the pictures of torture showed and what the bigger picture of the greater Iraqi prison demonstrates prove that the American officials are lying when they talk about handing the sovereignty to the Iraqis by the end of next June, especially with the American talk about staying in Iraq until the Army’s mission there is accomplished, as if such a mission could only be accomplished when Iraq is destroyed and its citizens are killed.

It is both shameful and disgraceful that some observers, including some American officials, have noticed that the pictures have generated a negative impact in Europe that is greater than that of the Arab world.

In addition, we have noticed that the Arab leaders have no big motive to take a serious and effective stand against this violation of all human and moral values. Have they become that addicted to American hegemony?

What is happening and what will continue to happen holds all Arab and Muslims responsible. They should act on all political and media levels to expose the American violations and to try the American officials before the International Court of Justice, since this could help in relieving them and in exposing how ugly America is running some of the Iraqi prisons, while presenting itself as the leadership the world can not do without.