Posted on 01/16/2006 1:26:24 PM PST by Hal1950
Karen Hughes, President Bush’s newest undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and the caretaker of America’s image abroad, has her work cut out for her.
A Zogby survey of 3,900 Arabs in Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates has uncovered massive distrust of U.S. motives in the Middle East.
Unkindest cut of all, Arabs would prefer that President Chirac and France lead the world rather than us, and, rather than have us as the world’s lone superpower, they would prefer the Chinese.
While Arabs are not as rabidly anti-American as in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, still, by 77 percent to 6 percent, they believe the Iraqi people are worse off today, and by four-to-one, Arabs say the U.S. invasion has increased, not decreased, terrorism.
Designed by Arab scholar Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution, the survey reveals pervasive cynicism about the stated goals of George W. Bush. When asked, “When you consider American objectives in the Middle East, what factors do you think are important to the United States?” the Arab answers came as follows:
Fully 76 percent said the Americans are there for the oil, 68 percent said to protect Israel, 63 percent to dominate the region, and 59 percent to weaken the Muslim world. Only 6 percent said we were there to protect human rights and another 6 percent said to promote democracy. Asked directly if they believe President Bush when he says democracy is our goal, two of every three Arabs, 78 percent in Egypt, said that, no, they do not believe Bush.
Asked to name the two nations that present the greatest threat to regional peace, 70 percent named Israel, 63 percent the United States, and 11 percent Britain. Only 6 percent named our bête noire Iran.
Asked to name the foreign leader they disliked most, Sharon swept top honors with 45 percent. Bush took the silver with 30 percent. No one else was close. Tony Blair came in a weak third. Only 3 percent of the Arabs detest him most.
While only 6 percent agreed with al-Qaeda’s aim to establish an Islamic state and only 7 percent approve of its methods, 20 percent admire the way al-Qaeda “stood up for Muslim causes” and 36 percent admire how it “confronts the U.S.”
Favorite news source? Sixty-five percent named Al-Jazeera either as their favorite or second favorite. What Fox News is to red-state America, Al-Jazeera is to the Arab street.
America’s standing in the Arab world could hardly be worse. And the questions the survey raises are these: Do we care? And, if we do, do not the Arabs have a point? Has not U.S. behavior in the Middle East lent credence to the view that our principal interests are Israel and oil, and, under Bush II, that we launched an invasion to dominate the region?
After all, before liberating Kuwait, Secretary of State Baker said the coming war was about “o-i-l.” And while we sent half a million troops to rescue that nation of 1.5 million, we sent none to Rwanda, where perhaps that many people were massacred.
If Kuwait did not sit on an underground sea of oil, would we have gone in? Is our military presence in the Mideast unrelated to its control of two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves?
If human rights is our goal, why have we not gone into Darfur, the real hellhole of human rights? If democracy is what we are fighting for, why did we not invade Cuba, a dictatorship, 90 miles away, far more hostile to America than Saddam’s Iraq, and where human rights have been abused for half a century? Saddam never hosted nuclear missiles targeted at U.S. cities.
And is Israel not our fair-haired boy? Though Sharon & Co. have stomped on as many UN resolutions as Saddam Hussein ever did, they have pocketed $100 billion in U.S. aid and are now asking for a $2 billion bonus this year, Katrina notwithstanding. Anyone doubt they will get it?
Though per capita income in Israel is probably 20 times that of the Palestinians, Israel gets the lion’s share of economic aid. And though they have flipped off half a dozen presidents to plant half a million settlers in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank, have we ever imposed a single sanction on Israel? Has Bush ever raised his voice to Ariel Sharon? And when you listen to the talking heads and read the columns of the neocon press, is it unfair to conclude that, yes, they would like to dump over every regime that defies Bush or Sharon?
Empathy, a capacity for participating in another’s feelings or ideas, is indispensable to diplomacy. Carried too far, as it was by the Brits in the 1930s, it can lead to appeasement. But an absence of empathy can leave statesmen oblivious as to why their nation is hated, and with equally fateful consequences.
January 16, 2006 Issue
Pat went off the deep end years ago. I refuse to read his rants.
We are always told to be very leery of polls taken here in the USA....so, I really can't put much stock in a poll taken from EGYPT!!!
However, just like the distaste I feel when I hear one of our Supreme Court justices quoted "foreign law"...I feel even more distaste having an ex-presidential candidate...
and media whore...PUSHING those poll results as a reason to HATE OUR PRESIDENT AND COUNTRY!!!
Actually, several years ago I forced myself in the summer to read all 800 some pages of "Mein Kampf." But you have to know what is in there to know how to counter it.
I have been flamed many times on FR...for calling Pat what he is: an anti-semite...
He has his fans....
Pat Buchanan is a disgusting POS
Yes.
And that is an understatement.
Thanks for the ping, Txsleuth!
Zogby has a reputation for inaccurate polling in this country. I am very suspicious of who was polled in these countries -- was it leaders, regular folk, just who?
It also does not take into account that in the named countries it can be on pain of death to say something that can be construed as critical of their government.
Zogby polls pretty far to the left in this country. I think that he may have been looking for a particular conclusion in his Middle East poll.
I don't think that I have illusions. The Middle East has known only one basic way and that's pretty much the way life is down there. So we are not the heros.
But I do know that 200,000 Jordanians protested in the streets of Amman Jordan when Zawahiri had bombed the wedding party. And I do remember reading that after the first elections in Iraq and the elections in the Palestinian authority came, there was tremendous pressure on Egypt to open their political system more.
And I do know that before the war, Iraqis were hoping for the Americans to liberate them. A great story was documented by the minister who went to be a human shield and was overwhelmed by the persuasion by the taxi driver that almost every Iraqi wanted this war and the Iraqis knew that the Americans are good.
Had it not been for what we are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would have been unthinkable to exert effective pressure on Syria to start withdrawing from Lebanon.
It's not a pretty picture, but it's necessary. We've tried the diplomacy of 16th century courtesans and talk gets us nowhere. And the brutes continue to behave as brutes but get well fed at the UN. We're done.
Now Pat may be a nice man who means well, but he always winds up aiming for Smoot-Hawley part deux, and that's not a smart direction for a myriad of reasons.
Check this article out, guys!
Arabs might but I am sure Pat does not.
Now...regarding the Middle East I disagree with Buchanan almost all the time. For some reason, he has a knee jerk antithesis toward Israel. I sometimes think the closest friend he ever had in the world must have been killed on the USS Liberty. Since that time he has never felt Israel can do anything decent, even by accident.
Whatever the reason, he hates Israel far more than the most virulent Islamist or Nazi that ever lived. With that yardstick, he will always side with any Arab "street" which makes it easy for him to see any point in the Middle East that diminishes Israel and, by association, the US.
I think my theory regarding Buchanan has as much validity as any he has regarding the state of Middle Eastern affairs.
P.S. I like Buchanan but am thankful he never attained any true power as a puppeteer.
"I dont think Israel is anyones "boy""
Agreed. If anything, America is Israel's puppet. They ask for money and the only thing we ask is "How much?"
I am surprised he/she hasn't gone and found more buddies to help....
Right when I think Pat has regained his sanity, he writes this crap.
me too....
but if they want to remain hidden, I am sure we will catch up with them on their next WalMart bashing thread or whatever comes up next.....
No, the Arabs do not have a point. Oil is the reason there is such a large population in the desert of the ME, but the US is not the major buyer of that oil. Japan, Europe, China, and India are the main customers for that oil. The US could easily build uranium power plants instead of importing Arab oil, so the pre-emption of the terror base of the ME is not about oil. It could be argued that the presence of the US in the ME is a proxy for these other oil-importing countries.
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