Posted on 09/27/2001 9:04:30 AM PDT by Illbay
Sept. 26, 2001, 8:47PM
DAMASCUS, Syria -- A morgue assistant pulls out drawers holding the mutilated corpses of Palestinians killed in clashes with Israelis. Doctors pummel the chest of a dead Palestinian in a desperate attempt to revive him. The body of an infant, swathed in bloodied blankets, is held by a grieving parent.
These raw images -- aired almost daily on Arab television since the Palestinian-Israeli clashes erupted a year ago -- haven't lost the power to touch the hearts of Arab viewers.
Indeed, they have fed a buildup of Arab anger -- not only against Israel but also against the United States, its chief ally, already resented for imposing 11 years of sanctions and carrying out repeated airstrikes on Iraq.
That anger provides a potential base of support for the militants, who can use it to keep governments from cracking down on them. The outrage has also left many Arabs grappling with conflicting emotions over the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in the United States.
Some governments -- while decrying the deaths at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania -- have echoed murmurs in the streets that the United States brought violence on itself by angering Arabs. Others have made it clear they want to be sure U.S. retaliation doesn't target nations like Iraq or groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, who are heroes to some Arabs because of their anti-Israel stance.
"We feel outraged by what happened in the United States, but we want the world to feel the same about the daily Israeli killings of Palestinians, the demolishing of houses and the humiliation of the people," said Wafa Mohammed, a shop owner in Jordan.
"If the United States had sympathized with the Arabs, the destruction that took place in the United States wouldn't have happened," said Mohammed Tohami, 22, an Egyptian frame maker.
"There's a feeling among Arabs that the United States is totally responsible for what's happening in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," said Imad Shueibi, a Syrian political analyst.
The Palestinian-Israeli clashes began one year ago Friday. The spark, the Palestinians say -- or the pretext, according to Israel -- was a visit by then-opposition Israeli leader Ariel Sharon to the holiest and most disputed site in Jerusalem, which Jews call the Temple Mount and Palestinians Haram as-Sharif.
Since then, 642 Palestinians and 177 Israelis have been killed. Many of the Israeli casualties were civilians who died in Palestinian suicide attacks against discos, restaurants, markets and train stations or shootings with machine guns and mortars.
The resulting resentment cannot be ignored as President Bush -- who has threatened to punish Afghanistan's Islamic rulers harboring suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden -- assembles U.S. forces for a retaliatory strike. Bin Laden has portrayed himself as the champion of Muslims and Palestinians.
Adding to the pressure on the mostly secular Arab governments are fatwas, or religious edicts issued by Muslim clergymen warning the governments against joining the anti-terrorism coalition.
I'm not sure I concede that you psephological and cultural expertise is superior to mine, but even if it were, what is, and what should be, front and center, in the American mind, are not always co-extensive. And I do expect those that intend to be taken seriously, to lay out the endgame of their proposed policies, and how and why that endgame is reasonably to be anticipated. To just advocate how the first pond should be moved on the chessboard, and then take a bye on the balance of how the game should be played, and can be anticipated to play out, is really not very interesting, nor useful. JMO.
What is at stake today is nothing less than the survival of our civilization. There may be some who would have thought a week ago that to talk in these apocalyptic terms about the battle against international terrorism was to engage in reckless exaggeration. No longer. Each one of us today understands that we are all targets, that our cities are vulnerable, and that our values are hated with an unmatched fanaticism that seeks to destroy our societies and our way of life.
Some of you may find it hard to believe that Islamic militants truly cling to the mad fantasy of destroying America. Make no mistake about it. They do. And unless they are stopped now, their attacks will continue, and become even more lethal in the future.
When in 1996, I wrote a book about fighting terrorism … I wrote, the consequences could be not a car bomb but a nuclear bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center. Well, they did not use a nuclear bomb. They used two 150 ton fully fueled jetliners to wipe out the Twin Towers. But does anyone doubt that given the chance, they will throw atom bombs at America and its allies? And perhaps long before that, chemical and biological weapons?
This is the greatest danger facing our common future. Some states of the terror network already possess chemical and biological capabilities, and some are feverishly developing nuclear weapons. Can one rule out the possibility that they will be tempted to use such weapons, openly or through terror proxies, or that their weapons might fall into the hands of the terrorist groups they harbor?
Good evening.
Very good reply.The only thing I would add is in addition to America is the rest of the non- Islamic world.
Read back over my posts. You'll find it. It takes a bit of effort, but if you would suspend your bloviating, you would have the necessary energy for it.
I'm not sure what part of "it isn't any of our business" you fail to understand.
Can you lay out the details of our elaborate foreign policy with regard to the primitive Tasaday people of the Phillipines?
If not, I suggest that you must know nothing about foreign policy.
This isn't hard for me to believe at all, and it never was. Did they not attempt to destroy the WTC in 1993? Did not the followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini declare the U.S. to be "the Great Satan" way back in 1979?
How about Lockerbie? The Achille Lauro? Those are just a couple of incidents where Americans wound up on the short end of fanatical terror.
Mr. Netanyahu is a clever man, but he insults our intelligence with such statements. And in the end, what he wants us to believe is that ISRAEL'S problems are OUR problems.
The TRUTH is, however, that world terror is far more focused on the U.S. than it is on his tiny little stump of a nation. They have their problems, sure, but so does Great Britain with the IRA. In both cases, their problems are close to home.
Meanwhile the U.S. is the focus of global terror on a MASSSIVE scale.
But both Israel and India, to name just two, would like for us to come in and "solve" their local problems.
My point is that "maybe we will, and maybe we won't." What will be the deciding factor? AMERICAN interests. I think we've about done with being the world's policeman.
I don't know the exact figures, but the qualitative answer is "far too much if these governments plot to harm us."
One thing is for sure: neither Saudi Arabia nor Kuwait has ever attacked us or coopted our citizens to spy for them.
Hell..I'm converting to Judaism and moving to Israel!
I am sure you are right. It was an honest mistake.
That is so stupid of you, it is not worth answering.
I don't believe that I said anything about genocide. What I did say is that if we level Baghdad and make it clear that the capitals of the other Arab states that sponsor terrorists are next, I think that would send a clear message. Everything would change. Right now the Arabs see us as weak and unwilling to even defend our own people. We need to prove to them that we can if necessary be as ruthless as they are. The Arab mind is twisted in that way. Killing innocents and civilians is seen as a sign or courage and a badge of honor worthy of respect. Sooner of later we need to come to that or we will remain targets and continue having our people killed needlessly. That's the reality that we are, or are not as it seems, dealing with.
Richard W.
I was pretty sure Goliath was a descendant of the Nephilim, though I did not know he had 4 brothers. It may happen again, and the sons of God may very well be on a collision course with the saints of God. Keep watch.
And I'm not sure 54% of the GNP figure is that high when you consider what Israel spends on defense. The US spends what on defense - 5%? Israel probably spends 20% or more as a wild guess.
Finally, you really do have an interesting technique for winning friends and influencing people. Just keep spewing out the vinegar at everyone in sight.
I assume they must have hated Europeans, or they probably would not have tried to invade them.Since we "invaded" North and South America, that must mean that we did it because we "hated" the indigenous peoples that lived here, right?
IOW, and for your information, the Moorish "invasion" of Iberia was on the same basis. They poured into the area and built cities and industries, and a magnificent culture. In fact, this was the ONE AND ONLY TIME AND PLACE in European history that Jews were not only tolerated but allowed to flourish.
But in the late Fifteenth Century, their Most Catholic Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella threw the Moors out of Spain, and established Roman Catholicism for once and for all in Spain.
And you might have heard of The Inquisition, which among other things killed or forcibly "converted" tens of thousands of Jews, for the crime of being Jews.
Now, who was it hated WHO, again?
Even though there might be some among us who favor this approach, since we are a pluralistic society it will not now, nor will ever happen.
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