AN OPEN LETTER TO THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

The Saudi Gazette | 15 March 02 | Everyman

[dixie sass]

I have not changed anything about this email, except to add the note at the top. I have read this three times now and will have to go back and reread it.

I had to post this, first because it is to our VP and secondly because it has left me stunned...I want to reply, but I don't know how. I guess we forgot that there might be someone over there other than Bin Laden and the Taliban and other radical fundamentalist groups. People.

[dixie sass]

Ping

[TADSLOS]

"your Excellency"

They still don't get it.

[dixie sass]

Ping

[jz638]

If that was written by an "average Saudi citizen" I'll eat my hat.

[sinkspur]

The Palestinians are a heroic manifestation of this pride.

Some "people." The writer of this piece has admiration, somehow, for those who blow themselves up, taking women and children with them.

Thanks for posting this. There are fewer moderate Arabs than I thought, which means this war on terrorism will take a lot longer.

[JRandomFreeper]

Show us that our lives are worth something to the Americans

They used to be to this America. They are worth nothing now. The scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see these backward savages for the danger they are.

/john

[Sloth]

He's got one or two good points in the whole thing. The rest is utter garbage -- a lot of doublethink.

[dixie sass]

ping

[sinkspur]

The picture of Mohammad Dura, the little boy hiding behind his father as the Israeli sniper got him, is a screensaver on many a computer in this area.

Yes, his father did shield him from the Israelis, but not from the rabid Palestinians, who murdered one of their own.

[Brundledan]

---"I guess we forgot that there might be someone over there other than Bin Laden and the Taliban and other radical fundamentalist groups. People."---

I consider them only "collateral damage."

-Dan

[Asclepius]

... Sorry to address you so informally, but some American friends tell me that Americans prefer informality and do not care for titles ...

The author is sadly misinformed.

We prefer informality in our informal relationships. But when titles are appropriate, as in this case, we use them.

The author misses the mark everywhere else too.

[Jaidyn]

I agree. It seems to have been written by an American who sympathizes with the Arabs. Why no name? Where was this person 6 months ago? There might be a few good ones but even they don't show their disdain for the perps nor do they appear to be sickened by the attacks. If an American went to their country (pre-911) we would have had him on a platter in a heartbeat and we would be apologizings, sending money and screaming bloody murder. But then, we are Americans.

[JRandomFreeper]

From another article: One witness said he saw three policemen "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya".

Even they don't think their lives are worth anything.

/john

[dixie sass]

Ping

[Asclepius]

... I guess we forgot that there might be someone over there other than Bin Laden and the Taliban and other radical fundamentalist groups. People ...

We forgot nothing of the sort. We've gone out of our way to protect Muslim sensibilities.

[sinkspur]

Is this the kind of fellow Islamist Abdul "Everyman" admires?

Saudis who herd school girls into a buring buidling, then STAND BY AND DO NOTHING while they burn to death?

"Everyman" ought to fix the multitude of problems in his own rotten country before lecturing the United States, which is trying to rid the world of his countrymen who are trying to kill us.

[dixie sass]

I don't know anymore about this letter than what I have already said. I suppose if I tried, I could get a link to the Gazette and reply. But as I said, I am stunned. I'm not sure that I could do so coherently or with the needed tact. Whoever wrote it was angry or so it seems and was obviously written by someone who is educated, possibly in the states.

[Own Drummer]

Kinda amusing how we see "moderate Arabs" coming out of the woodwork, right after someone leaks a document about our nuclear capabilities and possible usage....

And on the same line of thought, I still think the nuclear Sea of Glass option is a good one ("... from Gibraltar to the Ganges, one big sea of glass").

[aShepard]

This letter from whomever has an interesting perspective.

It's not about their hate of us, it's about their hate of Israel. We just become the financial enablers.

It's true that we would be total failures in brokering a peace between Arafat and Israel because the one-sidedness of our support.

That's something clinton didn't understand. He could get them to shake hands, but he didn't see the dagger still up their sleeves.