Posted on 06/08/2008 9:41:11 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
Egyptian actor Omar Sharif — best known for his film roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago — reportedly blasted U.S. policy in Iraq and said Americans are ignorant.
According to The Middle East Media Research Institute, Sharif said the "East" will never have a democracy because people like him "prefer to go to the neighborhood sheik." MEMRI —a Middle Eastern press monitoring organization — posted an interview of Sharif that aired on the Al-Hayat TV network.
"I lived in America for a long time. Only 10% of all Americans have a passport. In other words, 90% never left America," said Sharif. "They don't know anything."
Sharif said that he spoke with President Bush before the beginning of the Iraq War and told him that Arab nations are made up of sects resistant to becoming democratized.
"I said to Bush, even before he entered Iraq: Forget about all that. We, the Arabs... We are not like [regular countries]," said Sharif. "You will drown there.
After being asked what Bush's response was, the actor stated: "He didn't believe me."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I didn't realize our service members didn't require passports. When they are TDY, say in Singapore, do they use their military identification at customs/immigration?
Iraq might at best be a constitutional republic/autocracy
nation building only appears to work in choesive nationalistic cultures that have been brought to their knees or if they truly want it and are willing to fight for it
Iraqis are not fighting for democracy, they are fighting for power.
Yes, A military ID is as good as a Passport.
I used mine many times.
I traveled around the world with out a passport. Courtesy of Uncle Sam. And Omar bids 2 clubs. He should stick to what hes good at.
Omar, the U.S. is there to prevent the 70% of the World's known oil reserves that are in the Persian Gulf region from falling under the military control of a nuclear armed hostile Baathist Iraq or a nulclear armed radical Islamist Iran.
The "Democracy" experiment is strictly optional.
If, in the end, it takes a pro-U.S. strongman that rules with an iron fist, then that is what will be done.
Put in your application and you might be considered for the job.
Back in my out of the country days, you go do all of Central America and the Caribbean w/o a passport.
But I can’t say I disagree with him when he says Arabs don’t want democracy and that the average American is not a world traveler.
I think both are true.
Now aside from that he is without a doubt a son of Satan.
;>)
I wonder what those percentages are in Egypt, the land of enlightenment?
There are approximately 6 billion people on this planet. I'd wager considerably less than 10% of the world's population has passports.
The historic events are quite different. Japan had embraced a limited form of democracy in the early 20th century. Their march towards militant imperialism changed all that.
Besides, the Japanese had an violent awakening in 1945. The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced serious changes in Japan's society. Today, Japan is a peaceful secular society.
I seriously doubt that anything would convince Muslim's to change their ways. The Islamofascists are heroes to many people throughout the world for killing the infidels. Maybe we could nuke 2-3 cities in the Islamic world and kill a few hundred thousand Muslim's to force a change in their society. ;^)
90% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Why does it matter that someone doesn’t have a passport or has never left the country? The US is so big you and spend a lifetime exploring it and never see it all.
His so-called brain obviously is....
Our Geneva Conventions ID card and a copy of our orders.
/johnny
( standing applause) HERE HERE!
Love it! Obama is obviously is a F.A.G. (member)
It depends on where they go and their job/MOS. How many are assigned to Singapore? I had a passport in the early 50’s as a dependent in Europe. I had another in SF.
%
Sharif don’t like it....
%
Ralph Peters has made this point many times and Bob Kaplan, in his wonderful book, Imperial Grunts, quotes a Filipino newspaperman explaining to Kaplan and an Army Special Forces officer the difficulties of developing democracy in the Philippines, by saying " What Spanish culture nation has ever developed real democracy" I think Sharif's spot on here and i think it's something we should have considered in our warplanning.
"Why does it matter that someone doesn’t have a passport or has never left the country? The US is so big you and spend a lifetime exploring it and never see it all."
I think he was speaking from the idea of foreign travel broadening our horizons. That is, overseas travel can bring us out of ourselves and exposes us to places and cultures heretofore unknown except for reading about them in books. We might discover not only how various peoples are different from us, but also how they are in some ways the same.
His particular passport inference, it seems to me, was that do to a lack of first hand knowledge of how the other half lives, most Americans are rather naive and almost completely in the dark as far as Arabs, their beliefs, and their approach to governing are concerned. In other words people in the East do not think like those in the West and as such, will very likely not conform to Western ideas as it pertains to, among others things, their government.
I agree, to the extent that I don’t think Islam and freedom can co-exist. Islam, in many ways, is the denial and rejection of personal freedom and responsibility. Until Islam is eradicated billions of people will be enslaved to its dogma.
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