Replies

I'm shocked and awed by the lack of truth in these people -- not just Iraqi Misinformation Minister -- but in what seems to be ALL arabs and Afghans included. They wouldn't know honesty if it slapped them in the face. Not to generalize though.

Actually, you are quite correct in your generalization. There was an excellent book published about 30 years ago, "The Arab Mind," by arabist Raphael Patai. It covers this (in a nutshell: they have a different concept of truth) and many other fascinating aspects of the Arab way of thinking, which is so different from Western.

I highly recommend this book!

I heard a report on FOX earlier today by the reporter out of Amman, Jordan saying the Iraqi ambassador ( I think) was saying the US was keeping their export truck of needed supplies to Jordan from getting through. Jordan denied it. But then he said we were ALLOWING thier aid trucks to go to Um Qasr and Basra. Are they trying to make it seem like our aid trucks are theirs?

New info about what US officials believe is Saddam's status
coming up on FOX.

I have not read the book you mention, but I have noticed some interesting distinctions from personal experience in business. The Arabs will lie blatantly, and even tell several contradictory lies in the same conversation. It is just expected.

On the other hand, they are amazingly honest in other contexts. They have an informal system of delivering cash. It can be large sums delivered from one person to another person far away-- courriered by a complete stranger who just happens to be going that way. There is no concern that the money won't get there--it always does.

Right before we took out the Taliban i had read the Iliad and the Odyssey...and i kept harking back to those epics whenever i would see Afghanistan with their many tribal squabbles and with their leaders' tendencies to boast and to exaggerate about everything that happened. Their lives over in that part of the world seem so wrapped up in stories and in trying to weave their own verses into the imaginary tapestry that flows around them and their people. It's very much like the mentality that you read about in the Iliad, as though still extant today, so much so that every time i would hear about some Afghani leader marching his band of men against the Taliban i almost expected to see him holding a spear in his hand, thumping his chest with it, and then breaking out into some long poetic dialogue telling of how his men will massacre the enemy in one fell swoop. It's the same now listening to Saddam and his minions speak. The same sort of boasting and the same sort of painting pictures with words that have little to do with reality but everything to do with myth making.

Almost the enitre populace from Rabat to Rangoon lies coming out of the womb. Hence they think the whole world lies. Noone over there has one iota what the truth really is due the lies swirling around them. The natural result is they end up believing what they want to believe, and pick up the tidbits that support that, as the only ones they can trust are themselves.