Did the Arab "Street" Geta Message We Didn't Mean to Send?

self | 5/7/04 | LS

[LS]

Amidst all the apologies, I want to suggest we all (Hillary Clinton here) take a deep breath and consider something that no one in the administration or Congress has (publicly) considered:

The POW photos are having an unintended effect on the Arab "Street" and the "resistance."

By now, everyone pretty well knows that Arab societies base everything on power and perceptions of power. In part, that is why so many Freepers and conservatives got their panties in a bunch because it appeared in public like "apologizing" was a sign of weakness.

Ah, my friends. You aren't thinking like an Arab. The "street" and, indeed, the leadership doesn't trust much of what we say---they only look at what we do. It would have made no difference if Bush formally apologized and sent each detainee a bouquet of flowers---the "street" would see that as a sham, a pretense, a distraction from the "real" policy.

No, I suggest something else. That the Arab "street" and especially the "resistance" has taken from those photos a message we didn't intend to send, but one that strikes fear into the very heart of them---a message of pure power and dominance. The submissive positions of these "tough" Iraqi men under the heels and attached to the leashes of WOMEN (and relatively small women, at that) sends a very powerful message to the "street."

Don't screw with the Americans. Oh, they'll "apologize," be we know that when the hearings are over, and the attention is off, they can do what they want.

I want to reiterate: this is foreign to our way of thinking. Unless you're a hard-core Democrat, you don't pathologically lie to achieve your objectives. But we must start thinking like the enemy.

Has anyone noticed that we virtually walked into Najaf this week, unopposed? Al-Sadr did nothing. Has anyone noticed that Fallujah is quiet? Very few roadside bombs/suicide bombs in the last couple of days. This could all change, but it is eerie that when a message of power is sent out all over the Middle East---unintentionally on our part---it resonates. Big time.

[Enterprise]

What's happening now is that Sadr's thugs are active in Basra. I guess they think that at least the Brits will kill them or torture them instead of stripping them and having a "girl" parade them at the end of a leash.

[Enterprise]

Don't you kind of suspect that millions of women in the Middle East are kind of smirking at all of this? Big, brave, strong, women beaters at the end of a leash?

[Enterprise]

"The liberals in this country, obsessed with these photos are the best friends the Islamists have."

I think most liberals see these pictures and fantasize about being at the end of the leash.

[Enterprise]

"at the end of a leash held by a 90 pound woman sucking on a Pall Mall."

Really though, she should have a pack of Camels.

[Steve Eisenberg]

But when my daughter is born, she be named Lynndie!

So the example you put to your daughter is being sent into a war zone to get illegitimately pregnant while she disgraces her country by imitating some kind of S&M pornography?

[DeaconRed]

Damn
If only they had used PIGS
The fighting would be over.

[Toskrin]

This hit the Arabs right where it hurts, especially the Islamists. It touches on all their fears of the West: humiliation, sexual depravity, lack of subjugation of women, homosexuality, etc.

I don't condone using Iraqi prisoners to satisfy some freak's gay porn fetish. But we have been subjected to nasty underside of the Arab world over and over again - suicide bombers, September 11th, Daniel Pearl, Fallujah. It's time they get a taste of the worst America has to offer, and reflect upon it.

[LS]

Actually, I agree with you about both Fallujah and Najaf to a point---but it is interesting we've had just one "car bomb" in all of Iraq in the past week, and no uprisings anywhere. Our guys have kicked butt in Karbala---one might suspect that the enemy is demoralized?

[LS]

I agree with pretty much everything you say. The fact is, sadly, there is a place for psychopaths and sadists in almost any army, and while they are useful at times, of course they have to be officially denounced and repudiated in public. This is the plot of numerous movies. The old "You-Need-Me-On-That-Wall" line from "A Few Good Men."

I'm not ready to make a complete judgment on women in the military---I'm still not sure that "back line" positions can't be filled---but increasingly it is looking like, from Jessica Lynch to Gen. Karpinski, there is no place where women can safely relieve men in the military. I remain open on this.

[LS]

Your comments are interesting, because if you look at Victor Davis Hanson's 1999 book, "The Soul of Battle," he asked (pretty skeptically) in his conclusion if a western army of liberation could ever march successfully into battle again. Well, we showed that one could.

And even the Church commission has been overturned by the Patriot Act. But I understand your concern, and in the short run, the answer is, "yes," there will be some constraints put on interrogation of prisoners, and the CIA/Military Intel people will just have to go "deeper" in their plausible deniability when they do what they will continue to do.

[LS]

Well, consider this: if we "peppered the streets" earlier, it might not have the same credibility---in other words, they may have seen this as, in fact, an attempt to intimidate them and not BELIEVED the photos!

[LS]

In fairness, he alluded to this, but didn't really get to the nut of it---and I give Rush credit for everything I "steal" from him, even when I don't have to.

[AndyJackson]

So the example you put to your daughter is being sent into a war zone to get illegitimately pregnant while she disgraces her country by imitating some kind of S&M pornography?

And perpetually trying to get the military clerk to fix the spelling on her ID card.

[LS]

Wait, you're on to something. We need to send Roxanne, the Slave Mistress of Love, over to Iraq with a few of her "work tools!" EVERYONE would have a good time! :)

[LS]

"Maddie Albright in fishnet stockings . . . ."

NOOOOOOOOOO!

[ColdSteelTalon]

So what this means is that a Arab world is afraid of being photographed being dominated by women.

Hmmmmm fear of S&M bondage and being openly humiliated. Sounds like a new war tactic.

[LS]

"shouting that the Arab men have little members"

Translating from Arabic: Your males have mini-weenies. They are chipmunk organs. Surrender. We have American man-women and shemales who are larger than you!

[LS]

My wife was bike riding with a (probably Republican, but generally a-political) woman the other day, and out of the blue she said, "I hope these photos hit every Arab man where it hurts and I'd like to see them all on a woman's leash for what they do to women."

The libs must be churning that they have exposed the hypocrisy of "multiculturalism" and driven many middle-of-the-road women back to our side.

[LS]

No, you're not reaching at all, and Rush DID talk about this at length: there is a huge element (no pun intended) of homo-eroticism here, and the same people who in America WANT to see this sort of stuff decry it in Iraq? This is just a little too transparant for many Americans.

With each passing hour, I'm sensing the public is seeing this (Rummy, 69% say don't resign) and the PRESS IS TOTALLY MISSING IT, even Fox!

[nygoose]

Uday and Qusay are ed-day.

Very, very funny.Thanks