Who wants to make friends, or "win hearts and minds"? (see tagline).
Posted on 08/07/2006 5:33:18 PM PDT by Graybeard58
CAIRO, Egypt -- Anger toward America is high, extremists are on the upswing and hopes for democracy in the Middle East lie dashed. The Lebanon war is creating dangerous ripples in the war on terror, the future of Iraq -- even the effort to keep nuclear weapons from dangerous hands.
"America, we hate you more than ever," Ammar Ali Hassan wrote in the independent Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, in the kind of visceral, slap-in-the-face rhetoric boiling across the region.
So far, the violence has not led allies to take steps that directly hurt America's strategic interests, such as forcing the military from its regional headquarters in Qatar or its naval base in Bahrain. And there are those who see the conflict as the bloody but necessary prelude to a real assessment by the Arab world of its choices: democracy and peace, or Islamic extremism and warfare.
Yet so far, almost every U.S. and European goal for the region -- keeping oil prices stable, promoting democracy, fighting extremists, strengthening moderates -- is suffering.
Jordan's pro-American King Abdullah gave the sharpest warning last week: Even if Hezbollah loses the military battle, its rising popularity among Arabs mean a like-minded group could pop up anywhere in the Middle East, even in his own country.
Others worry terror groups may already be directly benefiting. Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader has called on supporters to wage holy war against Israel in a clear effort to turn the hostility to its advantage.
More broadly, a wide swath of even progressive, middle-class people across the Mideast are outraged at the Israeli bombing of Lebanon and in part blame the United States. That means the long-sought U.S. effort to win Arab and Muslim "hearts and minds" -- so crucial to fighting terrorism -- has suffered a huge blow.
The signs are everywhere grim:
-- Moderates such as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have become almost irrelevant. All hope of an Israeli-Palestinian "land for peace" deal lie in tatters for the foreseeable future.
-- Iran has received a prestige boost as a key Hezbollah backer, and it has gained some relief from its own problems: U.N. efforts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions still limp along, but have taken a back seat.
-- The effort to calm Iraq has been "complicated," because the Lebanon war has boosted the prestige of Shiite extremists who are pushing Iraq toward civil war, said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
The fighting even led to tension between Washington and Iraq's Shiite moderates, when the country's prime minister was harshly criticized by Democrats for condemning only Israel, not Hezbollah.
-- The push for democracy in other Arab regimes, already stalled, has ground to a halt. The U.S. is unlikely to pressure allies such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt for reform when it needs their help to end the crisis. Even many Arab reformers now believe the U.S. cares more about supporting Israel than anything elsey.
Not everyone thinks U.S. goals are in a muddle.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice believes the fighting, though painful, is the "birth pang of a new Middle East."
-- meaning the bloodshed and disarming of Hezbollah are required before the region can move toward peace.
There is indeed a widely held view that the Arab world needs a shakeout before it can make progress toward democracy or peace -- to decide if it wants to follow Hezbollah and Iran or moderates such as the Palestinians' Abbas.
President Bush hinted at that when he called the Israel-Hezbollah fight part of a "a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror."
Still others believe some of the Arab support for Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, could wane once the bombing ends and those in Lebanon take a hard look at the damage.
William Brown, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, contends America and Europe could seize an opportunity if Israel managed to disable Hezbollah temporarily. Brown said the U.S. should try to push a comprehensive peace plan that involves Israel, the Palestinians, Syria and Iran once the fight is over.
But he is skeptical the United States has the ability or will.
"I wouldn't like to see Nasrallah emerge as a hero in all this," Brown said. "But it's a distinct possibility."
Do you marvel at the blind eye turned to evil by many “intellectuals” today? Does the creeping anti-Semitism that condemns Israel for defending itself against Hezbollah rocket attacks stun you? Are you baffled by the moral equivalency given to Israel and the blatant terrorist fanatics of Hezbollah?
Recently, I suggested in conversation that the world is recreating the precarious conditions of the 1930’s that led to the deaths of millions in the Second World War. Victor Davis Hanson, in National Review Online, has explored that very premise in a lengthy and illuminating article.
Some excerpts:
When I used to read about the 1930s — the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Germany, the appeasement in France and Britain, the murderous duplicity of the Soviet Union, and the racist Japanese murdering in China — I never could quite figure out why, during those bleak years, Western Europeans and those in the United States did not speak out and condemn the growing madness, if only to defend the millennia-long promise of Western liberalism.
Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians.
These past few days the inability of millions of Westerners, both here and in Europe, to condemn fascist terrorists who start wars, spread racial hatred, and despise Western democracies is the real story, not the “quarter-ton” Israeli bombs that inadvertently hit civilians in Lebanon who live among rocket launchers that send missiles into Israeli cities and suburbs.
The growing turbulence of the 1930’s went largely unchallenged by those in power in Europe who instead sought to appease, smooth over, and get along with evil instead of condemning or combating it. As a result, roughly fifty million people died in the vast war that followed, and millions more would suffer for decades under the scourge of Communism that rose from the destruction.
The evil history of man is poised to repeat itself. Who will stand to prevent it?
Who wants to make friends, or "win hearts and minds"? (see tagline).
Sally Buzbee is AP's chief of Middle East news, based in Cairo.
She's not just A.P., she's the head idiot in the middle east.
If not hating them, we at least surely need to realize what the majority of Muslims have been taught: to hate and destroy the infedels. Watch Hannity & Colmes tonight and listen closely to their guest, a former Jihadist turned Christian, and what he has to tell us. I hope he'll repeat what he said on Sean's radio show today. It was downright chilling....
We already know.
The only one's it does impress is the left and it especially causes hand wringing among them to think Europeans and especially the French hate us.
It should go without saying that neither we nor any of our European "allies" will not have the courage to do what needs to be done.
You took the words right out of my mouth Coconutt!
LOL!
I guess flying 3 American planes loaded with innocent men, women, and children into buildings full of innocent men, women, and children was some sort of term of endearment! I am in a mood today so F them!
And I don't care more than ever.
Don't hate us because we're beautiful.
Let them envy that he has his 72 virgins while ululating they rush headlong from Syria into the Iraqi desert, hoping to be armed by their Slam-o-fast brothers, and only to find acute lead poisoning from fire directed by a specialist flying a drone from an air-conditioned equipment van 100 miles distant.
HF
Egypt = USA's number 1 aid recipient.
>>>Anger toward America is high<<<
Anger by patriotic Americans toward Liberals and Terrorists is very high.
I couldn't care less if they hate us or not. If our 'allies' take steps that hurt us, they hurt themselves also.
Well maybe if people like jimmy carter, bj clinton, and the ilk would shut their mouths, and let the people that KNOW what they are doing, do their jobs....just maybe we would be respected!!!!!!!!
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