Posted on 10/19/2003 8:27:31 PM PDT by Pokey78
Progress in the Arab world is being hindered by the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11, 2001, tightening of visa restrictions and the U.S. government's treatment of terrorism suspects, a team of Arab intellectuals contends in a new report to be released today in Jordan.
Thirty percent fewer Arabs studied in the United States in 2002 than three years earlier, according to the Arab Human Development Report. Some Arab governments also defended draconian measures against opponents by pointing to the stern security measures imposed by the United States and other developed democracies.
"It's 30 percent. Many reformers saw these people as the future hope," Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, director of the United Nations-sponsored report, said in an interview. "They were the ones who advocated reform. They were the ones who had a different vision."
The student numbers could not be independently verified yesterday.
The study, one of a U.N. Development Program series on obstacles to Arab development, comes as President Bush and his foreign policy staff pursue an ambitious project to push democratic change in the Islamic world. It follows an unfavorable assessment of U.S. public diplomacy efforts in Muslim countries by a White House-appointed committee.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I'm more interested in how many fewer Islamic terrorists have made it into the US than three years earlier.
By way of example, the report cites a 1991 figure indicating that 22 Arab countries produced 6,500 books, compared with 102,000 books published that year in North America. An unusually high percentage of books have a chiefly religious content, while many schools simply do not expect students to read literature.The quality of education is declining and scientific research is largely stagnant, the report states, while the understanding and usage of classical Arabic is deteriorating.
But, naturally, it's all our fault that the average Arab is as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to everything except treachery, mendaciousness and deception.
For the last 1400 years or so I might add!
Oh, boo hooo.
The "Arab World" has taken 10,000 years to get to the bronze age. I wonder who they were blaming 300 years ago?
CNN.com - Law Center: "SAUDI PRINCES SEEK IMMUNITY AGAINST 9/11 LAWSUITS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Lawyers representing two Saudi princes argued Friday that their clients have immunity from lawsuits relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, because they are diplomatic officials.") (October 17, 2003) (Read More...)
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