New ping list for Islamic Jihad and terrorism. 3 pings per day, every day. Some from my old ping list are on by default.
On or off let me know by freepmail.
Easy on, easy off, via freepmail.
Posted on 11/23/2003 8:59:50 PM PST by quidnunc
American reactions to the recent bombing of a foreign workers' compound in Riyadh reveal multiple misreadings of the Arab world and — more dangerously — of both al Qaeda and the Saudis.
The media seem to equate Arab with Muslim and, along with some in the administration, think that al Qaeda's war is against Americans and Westerners per se, rather than against all "infidels," a group al Qaeda defines idiosyncratically and expansively as anyone who is not a strictly observant Muslim. Both mistakes are compounded by reliance on the Saudis' distorted account of the attack.
The November 8 bombing took place in a Lebanese Christian neighborhood of Riyadh, and of the seven publicly identified Lebanese victims, six were Christian. Lebanon's newspapers are replete with photographs of Maronite Catholic and Greek Orthodox victims. Daleel al Mojahid, an al Qaeda-linked webpage, praised the killing of "non-Muslims." The Middle East Media Research Institute quotes Abu Salma al Hijazi, reputed to be an al Qaeda commander, as saying that Saudi characterizations of the victims as Muslims were "merely media deceit."
If so, the media fell for it. Reuters described the bombing as against "fellow Muslims," the Los Angeles Times as "against Muslims," the Washington Times called the victims "innocent Muslims," the San Francisco Chronicle "Muslim civilians who happened to be in the wrong place," and the New York Times "expatriates from other Muslim countries."
Others used vaguer terms. The BBC said the "bombing killed Arabs and Muslims," as did the Associated Press, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. In the Wall Street Journal, David Pryce-Jones pronounced the dead "exclusively Arabs and Muslims." While perhaps strictly correct, this circumlocution hides the fact that the victims included Arab non-Muslims and Muslim non-Arabs.
The effect of this mischaracterization is to link Arab to Muslim, ignoring the large numbers of Christian Arabs from Egypt, Lebanon, and elsewhere who work in Saudi Arabia (and Israel) and have long been targeted by Islamic extremists, including by the Saudi government. (At the time of the bombing, two Egyptian Christians, Sabry Gayed and Guirguis Eskander, were in a Riyadh prison for holding a worship service, even though Prince Sultan had ordered them released.)
Similarly, media coverage of the October 4 suicide attack on Maxim, a restaurant in Haifa, noted that one co-owner was Jewish, but described the other simply as "Arab." Commentators wondered why Palestinian terrorists were killing "Arabs." But the second co-owner was actually a Lebanese Catholic, as were many of those killed. The term "Arab," while playing into America's obsession with ethnicity, hides the religious dimension that is central to the worldview of al Qaeda, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.
Similar puzzlement over attacks in Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia, as well as over the targeting of the U.N. and Red Cross in Iraq, reflects a focus on nationality and ethnicity that misses the terrorists' own obsession with "infidels" and once again ties the attacks exclusively to anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at benadorassociates.com ...
The fact that the Saudi authorities did not reveal that this was largely a Lebanese Christian area, that they rapidly demolished the remains and stayed silent while the media misreported the identity of the victims, suggests a deliberate attempt to mask what is going on in the kingdom. (Meanwhile, a debate is taking place in the Saudi press over whether a woman named Saban Abu Lisam, who was herself injured in the blast but nevertheless drove seven other injured victims to the hospital, should be praised for her courage or punished for violating the ban on women driving.)
Duplicitous bastards, the whole lot of them!.
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Let's say it more plainly. We are in a world-wide war with a religion that wants to impose a world-wide Taliban state --as ti must to fulfill the commandments of the Koran. al Qaeda is only a part of it.
Sorry, but theirs is not a religion of peace, not by any definition. The sooner that is realized universally, the better off the "infidel" world will be.Lying, BTW, to infidels is permitted. Infidels don't count at all.
In the Balkans, in Kosovo and Macedonia they are still killing Christians and destroying their Churches.
The UN and the Western media do not even pretend to notice.
Over 125 Christian Churches destroyed in Kosovo just since the UN got there in 1999 a la clinton.
Excellent article. I do remember that just after the bombings, news reporters spoke of the complex as being considered "sinful" by the Saudis. In Islamic paradises like Saudi Arabia, that usually means non-Muslim. But none of the reporters appears to have followed up and investigated in any way, or if they have, they've kept their findings quiet.
If the press took a tenth of the time they waste standing around waiting for some freaky entertainer to appear in handcuffs for his latest round of gross behavior, and used it for actually investigating a story that mattered, we might have gotten better a better idea of this, despite Saudi duplicitousness.
I thought the above quote was an excellent summary of our problem (and I fear it afflicts not only the media and the Dems).
New ping list for Islamic Jihad and terrorism. 3 pings per day, every day. Some from my old ping list are on by default.
On or off let me know by freepmail.
Easy on, easy off, via freepmail.
How many muslims in America contribute to the terrorists through the mosque? One muslim in Brooklyn funneled $28 million of "community money" to hamas. We have muslim-in-America freepers. Where does their $$ go?
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