Open your eyes and look at what's happening not only in the Arab news media but here, too.

That's the key warning from Arab media expert Mamoun Fandy, a columnist for two daily newspapers, Asharq al-Awsat in London and al-Ahram in Cairo. He is also a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and author of "Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent." And, in a Washingon Post piece, he issues a warning about what's going on "out there" and "over here."

Let's take his last three conclusions first here, since they're the most compelling. They are:

(1)"The American media also have a role to play. They could make it easier for Arabs unequivocally to condemn beheadings and other acts of barbarism by talking to a broader range of commentators in the region. ".

(2) "If Arab moderates were to become prominent in the West, they would certainly become prominent at home. Instead, the BBC has been treating us to Atwan -- bin Laden's mouthpiece and the main cheerleader of suicide bombers on al-Jazeera -- as its main commentator on Arab affairs. Western media should tip the balance in favor of those who condemn terrorism but so far have been afraid to do so publicly."

(3)"The American media should also stop replaying images of violence from al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, because when the Arab media air these gruesome images, they animate the logic of terror. They export fear to America. If the Americans did not import these pictures, the Arab media would stop manufacturing them. That could be a first step toward defeating the terrorists who kill not just for Allah and jihad, but for airtime."

He hits the nail on the head. The problem that is being battled against is the "everyone else is doing it and I need to get it on first" syndrome that permeates the media (to all those who felt The Front Page culture died, it is very much alive, but in newer forms in newsrooms and on the Internet).

Fandy notes in his piece how when upon scanning Arab newspapers and broadcast outleets after the most recent beaheadings in Iraq and Saudia Arabia he saw "very little condemnation and a widespread willingness to run the stomach-turning video and photos again and again." In his piece, he outlines how this is created by cultural shifts in the Arab news media -- as well as a big dose of fear.

Islamic radicals have killed writers in Algeria, Egypt and elsewhere whose work challenged the logic of martyrdom and "random jihad," or killing foreigners in the name of Islam. But the lack of condemnation of the beheadings, despite their barbarism, is a direct result of a broad and dangerous trend in Arab media and in Arab culture broadly. The Arab world today swims in a sea of linguistic violence that justifies terrorism and makes it acceptable, especially to the young.

He points to articles that "glorify death and urge young people to be suicidal, are part of the steady diet that Arab youths are exposed to every day," and a lopsidded point of view in favor of terrorists in general:

Another example: Faisal Qasim, al-Jazeera's most popular talk-show host, recently devoted his entire 90-minute show to berating those who condemn terrorism in the Arab world, whom he called "agents of Washington's neo-cons." He wrote an article that made the same point for the pro-bin Laden newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, whose editor in chief, Abdul Bari Atwan, is a regular guest on al-Qasim's show.

Last month I traveled to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon and saw for myself the effect on the young of the Arab media's tendency, particularly on satellite television, to portray terrorists as resistance fighters and to broadcast in their entirety the videotaped messages of al Qaeda.

So the carnage is being encouraged by the Arab news media as de facto cheerleaders -- and the cheerleaders (and terrorists) are getting their postive reinforcement by the news media and some websites here which give them full credit in the form of extensive coverage for their "work."

The eager audience validates the cheerleaders who cheer the terrorist team on. But if the audience did little or more restrained validations the cheerleaders might perhaps do a bit less -- and then maybe the terrorist team woudn't taste the huge publicity bonanzas that now help spur them on to slit again and again.........