Posted on 04/08/2003 5:20:44 AM PDT by kattracks
Arabs shocked, defiant as US fights in Baghdad
By Sami Aboudi
CAIRO, April 8 (Reuters) - Anger mixed with defiance in the Arab world as it watched U.S. forces advance into the heart of Baghdad on Tuesday in their drive to topple President Saddam Hussein.
Emotions ran high, stoked by relentless television coverage of U.S. tanks rumbling across the Iraqi capital and Baghdad's hospitals overflowing with casualties.
Some Arabs called for armed struggle, including suicide bombings, to drive out the Anglo-American "invaders."
Others refused to believe the Americans were in Baghdad. Many mourned the fall of a historic centre of Arab and Islamic civilisation.
"Our last walls of resistance fell in Baghdad. I feel like an orphan now," said Samia Megtouf, a 20-year-old university student in Tunis.
Samir Ragab, editor of Egypt's semi-official al-Gomhuria daily, lamented that Baghdad's resistance was crumbling before the the world's only superpower and called for guerrilla war against the invaders.
"The Arab nation will wake up one morning to discover that Haroun al-Rashid's capital has been stolen by force," he wrote in a column, referring to a prominent caliph who ruled in Baghdad more than a millennium ago, during the golden Abbasid era.
"The only solution lies in the armed struggle and martyrdom bombers until the aggressors are compelled to withdraw in disgrace," he added.
While some Iraqi exiles, Kuwaitis and others have welcomed the American and British invasion, they seem hugely outnumbered by opponents of the war across the Arab world.
"I am really very shocked and sad," said Ali Abbas, an employee at a private company in Bahrain. "It's very bad and its unfair to see foreign tanks in an Arab capital. I couldn't sleep for thinking of the people in Baghdad."
Akil Rashed, a 43-year-old Saudi civil servant in Riyadh said: "By committing such actions, the United States is no longer a superpower because these actions are only committed by backward countries with narrow scopes."
Fahd Saleh, a 38-year-old Saudi civil servant, added: "I am starting to hate America after I used to love it."
"This new government and this reckless clique which has failed in building an international coalition, attempted to cover up its failure by trying to impose its hegemony on helpless peoples."
BITTERNESS AND DENIAL
Amid the anger and bitterness, some said they could not believe that Baghdad would fall so easily.
"The Arab nation is tasting another defeat. I have a bitter taste in my mouth. It is difficult to think now," says Ali Findouli, a 55-year-old Tunis shop owner.
Ahmad al-Maliki, a minibus driver in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, insisted the television footage was a lie.
"At the beginning, the pictures shocked me and I decided to stop watching television, but broadcasts by satellite channels that are against the war exposed the fact that they are fake," Maliki said.
In Cairo, 40-year-old Sabri al-Aissawi said he was sure Iraqis were fighting back against the U.S. troops.
"The Iraqis will not let them in easily. They are hitting them hard," he said.
Abdul Aziz Obeid, a resident of Sanaa, declared: "I hope those pictures signal the start of U.S. and British forces entering a quagmire from which they will not emerge safe."
Galal Dweidar, editor of Egypt's mainstream al-Akhbar, wrote that no one disputed that Baghdad would eventually fall to superior American firepower.
"But it is certain that this will not be easy in the face of the Iraqi people's rejection of these forces, regardless of their stand towards Saddam's regime," Dweidar wrote.
He said popular anger could turn against Arab governments which had supported the U.S.-British invasion as well as against the two Western powers.
(Contributions from Abbas Salman in Bahrain, Fahd al-Frayyan in Riyadh, Lamine Ghanmi in Tunis, Mohammed Sudam in Yemen)
04/08/03 08:15 ET
Hate to tell this guy, but he better get used to the taste if they keep up the nonsense - the larder is full.
but he could sleep before?....slept like a baby knowing how Saddam treated his people for lo these many years? knowing Saddam killed thousands? guess he never had his wife/daughter raped and tortured by this regime....guess he never had his family members stolen...only to be returned with bullet holes
he'd make a good democrat..."well, it didn't happen to me, so....."
"Pain make man think, Thought make man wise,
And wisdom make life endurable."
-Sakini (Teahouse of the August Moon)
Idiots. They wreck their own city and kill themselves in defense of a corrupt, violent, repressive and inefficient tyrant. It would be one thing if they were offering a credible fight, but they're not. I'm not even sure that it is culturally possible for them to work well enough in a cohesive unit to offer up a credible military defense.
Guess who has been watching CNN?
Sorry, old man, Allah has depleted his stock of virgins.
Want some koolaid with that.
Sounds like DNC talking points. Maybe this guy writes speeches for Dean and Kerry.
I can identify. I was a little miffed seeing Arab-flown passenger jets fly into the World Trade Center too.
Perhaps if the 20-year-old university student had spent some time in Hussein's prison for children because of the dissident political beliefs attributed to the parents, he/she would have a better understanding what it means to be an orphan . . .
Perhaps experiencing the smell of 5000 dead in Halabja at the hands of the Iraqi regime's chemical attack would dampen Samia Megtouf's rhetoric . . .
The days of willie, the pervert, klinton are gone, the adults are in the peoples house now.
Uh...Samir, what happens if the armed strugglers and martyrdom bombers are compelled to withdraw in disgrace?
(Kinda reminds you of the time Isadora Duncan asked George Bernard Shaw to father her baby because she wanted a child with her looks and his brain, but George declined because it might wind up with his looks and her brain.)
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