Posted on 11/16/2003 10:24:45 AM PST by jveritas
The article below about Arabs may upset a lot of the PC people who will read it. This article is based on my own experience being born and raised in Lebanon for twenty-two years, including fifteen years of the Lebanese civil war and the first Gulf war in 1991. Some may say that it is not fair to generalize because not all Arabs are like what I am describing. Yes I can generalize; because generalization is talking about the majority and not the minority. I am convinced that what I am saying applies to the majority of the Arab society; make it the vast majority.
No people in the world today has suffered from more crushing defeats than the Arabs. In the last one thousand year, the Arabs have lost every war they fought. The psychology of defeat is so deeply rooted among Arabs, that it has created the strongest feeling of delusion that can ever plague a society. This state of delusion has created in them an extremely foolish state of denial that the West cannot comprehend. Reality and Arabs cannot go together and that where many problems stem out.
During their fifty-five years conflict with the state of Israel, the Arabs have lost every war. The defeats were very crushing. In June 1967, Israel destroyed three Arabs armies in six days and triples its size. The Arabs were claiming great victory in these six days and they were comparing Israelis Air force to flies; the same flies that totally abolished the Arabs Air force in the first three hours of the war. In October 6 1973, Syria and Egypt launched an offensive where they had achieved very little gains in the first few days, but after two weeks they were totally crushed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel made more territory gains in Syria and Egypt then they did in 1967. Today Arabs still celebrate 1973 as a victory and they have October 6 as national holiday in Syria.
The crushing defeat that the Arabs have suffered at the hands of Israel had worsened the state of delusion and denial that they have suffered from for hundred of years. Even worse, it created unimaginable hate and anger not only to Israel but also to the West in general and to the United States in particular. Because of this, many Arabs are living in the last twenty years in a more fatal delusion where they think that they are going to destroy the United States of America and establish a new world order ruled by an Arabic Islamic empire.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 2nd 1990, many Arabs were cheering the invasion because they thought this man is the new leader that will unify the whole of the Arab WORLD and lead them to the ultimate victory against Israel and the United States. In fact they strongly believed that the Iraqi army will crush the US military and they were eagerly waiting for the show down to come. When the war started on January 17 1991, the vast majority of Arabs strongly believed that the United States will suffer ten of thousands of death and will flee the Middle East. In fact in the Arab streets they were talking about these imaginary victories that the Iraqis were achieving against the US and its allies. When the war ended in late February 1991, the Arab street could not believe that the Iraqi army can be crushed so quickly and they start introducing all the conspiracy scenarios between Saddam and the US where Saddam invade Kuwait so the US will come kick out and control the Arab oil in the Middle, in return the that Saddam stay in power and get US protection. You may not have heard this here in the US but these are the wild and delusional stories that I have heard in the Arab street and the Arab media.
Enter the most delusional of all Arabs; the Islamic fundamentalists. Those people strongly believe that they can defeat the United States and rule the world through the Islamic shari’aa and few events in the last twenty years that fueled their delusions. In October 23rd 1983, a Islamic suicide terrorist destroyed the Marines barrack in Beirut Lebanon killing 241 of our military. The United States withdraw shortly after that and many Arabs claim they have achieved victory. I remember the cheers and the firing of AK 47 in the streets of Islamic West Beirut celebrating the presumed defeat of the United States. This event emboldened Arabs and Muslim fundamentalists and they start hitting us here and there without any real response from the United States. Finally, they thought they would deal us a final blow, so they came on September 11 and killed thousands of us. A large number of Arabs and Muslims were cheering that day and their delusions of a final victory against the United States grow from bad to worse to the worst.
When we went to Afghanistan to remove the Taliban and AL-Qaeda, the Arab street and the Arab media said that we will face the same fate of the Soviet Union and Britain before us. We removed the Taliba in three weeks and Al Qaeda is on the run all over the world. When we set up to remove Saddam Hussein, the Arab street and the Arab media thought that we will loose ten of thousands of soldiers in streets fights in the Iraqi cities. To their ultimate shock Saddam Hussein and his regime fell in three weeks with very few casualties and this defeat was extremely hard for them to accept or comprehend. Now after seven months of our occupation in Iraq, we are facing an insurgency of few thousands and the Arabs strongly believe in their delusional mind that we are going to loose this war and withdraw. Even worse, many Arabs think that Saddam deliberately gave up Iraq so he can engage in a guerilla warfare against the US, defeat them and return to victorious to power. They think if they kill few hundred of our troops we will leave running like what we did in 1983 in Beirut. What the Arab do not understand because of their perpetual state of delusion that after 9/11 America will not leave the Middle East until we root out terrorism once and for all.
All we need is a Democrat victory for this to go from delusion to reality.
Actually, it is 'grammar'. Back to 3rd grade with thee! Government schools are ready when you are.
FMCDH
Don't get you hopes up too high on secularization of Muslim states being accomplished---it is in fact a contradiction in terms.
Islam on one hand teaches that it offers a perfect way of life and on the other that apostasy and blasphemy must be punished by death.
But strict adherence to Islam precludes the sort of individualism and free-thinking which makes modernity possible.
Consequently Muslims find themselves locked in a medieval shame/honor culture of paternal tribalism.
And they are regressing.
As a culture, Muslims have journied through history wearing a "Born to lose" tatoo.
Your essay does not make much sense the way it is written if you don't.
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