Posted on 04/06/2003 4:28:48 PM PDT by MadIvan
Arab satellite news channels, broadcasting footage of advances by coalition forces on Baghdad, are beginning to question whether Saddam Hussein has put up a proper fight against the allied advances.
Throughout the Arab world there is a mood of disappointment. The initial resistance by Saddam's forces raised expectations that he would put up a tougher fight around the capital.
"Why is he letting the Arabs down now," a Lebanese caller asked a phone-in programme, "when his forces fought so bravely in the south of the country?"
A presenter on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya television network said the Iraqi leader had promised "surprises" that would inflict huge losses. "Why have we not seen the surprises?"
A military expert later wondered why the Iraqi army had not concentrated on attacking the allies' supply lines, rather than moving forces back to try to defend Baghdad. "Saddam's fedayeen should be attacking the trucks carrying food, water and fuel," he added.
"Why didn't Saddam order all the bridges to be blown up along the route to the capital?" another studio guest wondered.
Several Arab newspapers highlight the discrepancy between Iraq's assessment of the war and that of the coalition forces. "The information war is intensifying," said al-Sharq in Qatar. In Jordan, al-Rai asked "where the real truth lies amid the confusion and contradiction of the news reports?" Nevertheless, on its front page the paper's main headline read: "Iraq retakes Saddam airport."
The Lebanese daily al-Nahar went one better, saying that "Saddam led the attack to retake the airport", while Akhbar al-Khaleej in Bahrain said: "We have wiped out the invading forces at the airport."
But other Arab papers adopt a more realistic line, with al-Watan in Saudi Arabia declaring that "the Americans have taken the airport and the Iraqis have retreated into Baghdad".
Kuwait's Rai al-Am assessed the situation in three words: "Baghdad's last stand."
"Why have we not seen the surprises?"
We have seen the surprises - we've seen hundreds of machinegun-armed pickup trucks charging columns of armored vehicles, and we've seen them quickly turned into smoking piles of slag.
It's not that the surprises haven't been tried, they haven't worked.
I'm reminded of a bit from Hitchhikers' Guide:
For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.
YIKES ! This Islamic dude wishes for large USA loses.
You got the surprises, loser. Not the surprises you expected, but then you wuldn't have been surprised, see?
Now for the next... Syria? Iran?? "Palestine"????
So many losers, so much ammo...
They unquestionally swallow the al-Jazeera reports of Iraqi prowess and victories and Allied quagmire and defeat and then find themselves totally "shocked and awed" when reality inevitably bursts their fantasy bubble.
If the Arabs had thrown their sympathies with the oppressed Iraqi people rather than the Baathist thugs, these Arabs could now be celebrationg a victory with the citizens of Basra instead of enduring another "humiliation".
LOL.
(steely)
Islam is truly a sick social construct. This "Moderate Muslim" is saddened that chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons are not being used.
From Farrakahn in the US, the Muslim message of convert or death is everywhere from Indonesia, Phillipines, France (10% of the population), various African countries, Russia ad infinitum - the stage is being for a conflict that might truly be the beginning of the what the Book of Revelations is all about. This so called religion of Islam is the religion of satan.
Because they're not as "elite" as they have been billed? I asked myself the same question. I'm no military expert, but from what little I know about WWII and other wars, if you know you can't hold the bridge, you blow it up. It seems to be common knowledge amongst the military people. If I had been whoever is in charge in Baghdad, I would have ordered the bridges blown up, if for no other reason than to make as big a mess as possible for the Coalition to clean up. I wonder why their Russian advisers didn't advise them to blow up the bridges? For all we know, they did, but the Iraqis were too stupid and unrealistically confident in their abilities against the Coalition to listen.
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