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What’s Wrong with the Arab World? - Are the Arabs really this stupid?
National Review ^ | March 31, 2003 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 03/31/2003 6:29:31 AM PST by Asher

March 31, 2003, 9:10 a.m.

Goldberg File

Jonah Goldberg

What’s Wrong with the Arab World?

We’re not morons, you know.

Are the Arabs really this stupid?

As politically incorrect as this may sound, that's more or less what I keep thinking when I read about the Arab world's response to the war in Iraq. Oh, I don't mean their opposition to the war. While I think it's the wrong position to take, it's hardly fair to say it is an inherently unintelligent point of view. Reasonable and unreasonable people alike may differ on this. Jacques Chirac isn't stupid — nor, for that matter, is his old friend Saddam Hussein.

No, what I'm referring to is the widespread outrage from across the region denouncing two alleged — alleged — accidental misfires of U.S. weapons which Saddam's regime says hit Iraqis. After 58 Iraqi civilians died in a second such incident, newspapers across the Arab world went into overdrive. "Monstrous martyrdom in Baghdad," blared a huge headline in al-Dustur, a Jordanian newspaper. "Dreadful massacre in Baghdad," Egypt's huge Akhbar al-Yawm newspaper declared, featuring pictures of two young victims of the explosion covering half the front page. "Yet another massacre by the coalition of invaders," was the main headline in our ally Saudi Arabia's popular al-Riyadh daily (Note: The first "massacre" claimed 15 lives).

Between these newspapers and the broadcasts of the al-Jazeera television network and numerous similar Arab TV stations, the region is being fed a steady stream of body parts, wailing children, and grieving women.

In response to these images and the corresponding commentary about them, numerous intelligent, successful, Arab civilians from across the Middle East believe that America is willfully murdering Arab civilians in huge numbers. "Those pictures have showed that America's war is not only against the Iraqi regime and the Iraqi army, but also against the Iraqi children and elderly. How can we trust them now?," 19-year-old Mahmoud Sahiouny, a Syrian computer-science student who lives in Beirut asked the Washington Post.

"It is as if you are watching a horror movie," said Summer Said, a journalist for the Cairo Times, an English-language newsmagazine. "I thought, at first, okay, maybe it isn't a war for oil. Maybe America does want to help. Now, it's genocide to me. Is the American government trying to exterminate Arabs?"

And it is precisely this point which makes me ask, Are the Arabs stupid?

For you see, if the goal were to massacre Arabs — never mind commit genocide — we would not bomb merely two obscure markets. If our goal was to "exterminate Arabs" our precision-guided bombs might land more precisely — and more often — on Arabs in, say, Basra or Baghdad or Cairo, or wherever else we might find Arabs in large numbers. Instead, the criticism from even the Iraqi military is that we are blowing up empty buildings. Indeed, as of this writing, we've launched more than 17,000 sorties over Iraq in about 12 days. For some perspective, the Dresden firebombing took place over a period of about 18 hours and involved about 2,000 bomber sorties. It killed about 135,000 people. We've launched 8 1/2 times that number of sorties and generated less than 1 percent of the casualties. I'm no bean counter, but if our intent is to "massacre" Arabs, our tax dollars are being woefully misspent.

So, what's going on?

ARAB PRIDE Well, for one thing, the hothouse logic of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is surely spilling over into this one. For decades, Arab governments and the newspapers they control have been pouring gasoline on the fire of Arab resentment toward Israel as a way to deflect attention from their own corrupt and impoverished regimes. No doubt, there are Palestinians with serious and legitimate grievances against Israel (and vice versa) but Arabs in Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, etc., who have no plans ever to visit historic Palestine, have no relatives there, and, were it not for the presence of Jews there, would not care about the plight of the Palestinians at all, have been convinced that their problems can be attributed to the oppression of the Palestinians. The Palestinians are the Sudenten Germans for any number of dictatorial regimes, beginning with Iraq.

Indeed, speaking of Iraq, we won't know for sure for some time, but there's every reason to think that since the war began Saddam Hussein has ordered the purposeful murder of more Iraqi civilians then we have killed by mistake, and yet there are no headlines about that in Cairo or Riyadh, and no pictures of Jordanian Arabs tearing apart the Iraqi flag with their teeth in the Washington Post either.

And it has been ever thus. Syria's government wipes out thousands of its own, and no one cares (including, alas, the U.S. government). Syria occupies Lebanon even today and no one wails about the "occupation." Iraq invades Kuwait and it is easily forgiven and forgotten. Shiites in Saudi Arabia are second-class citizens, to say the least. But Israel, ah Israel; if Israeli kills even a single civilian by accident in pursuit of terrorists who blow up children, the charges of "genocide" go up like flags on a football field.

Even the single greatest indictment against Ariel "the Butcher" Sharon centers on an event in which Arab Christians slaughtered Arab Muslims. Whatever Sharon's culpability in the massacres at Shabra and Shatilla, they were almost certainly tangential and inadvertent. Nevertheless, Sharon is routinely denounced as a blood-drinking warmonger, while Yasser Arafat is "a man of peace," despite the fact that he has directly ordered the murder of women and children on more occasions than anyone cares to remember. Indeed, Arafat has ordered the execution of more Palestinian civilians (he calls them "collaborators") than Sharon has.

Which, understandably, brings us back to Saddam. It may be, as Chris Matthews suggests — with just a bit too much of a smirk — that Iraqi nationalism and ethnic pride are forcing many Iraqis to overlook Saddam Hussein's evil and defend their nation in much the same way millions of Russians defended Saddam's reported hero Joseph Stalin. Of course, the Germans weren't invading Soviet Russia as liberators (though they were greeted as such by many in the Ukraine and elsewhere).

Indeed, to the extent such loyalty extends beyond the ranks of the Fedayeen Saddam and the Republican Guard — we still don't know how many Iraqis are fighting from fear rather than loyalty — I think it has more to do with what could be described as mass-Stockholm syndrome. So terrorized and brutalized have the Iraqis been, for so long, they scratch at the eyes of their rescuers.

GOOD RIDDANCE VS. GOOD FUTURES This is a tragedy.

The Arab world is a basket case, economically and politically (morality we can debate another day). One handy statistic: If you subtract oil, the total exports of the Arab world — i.e., the 500 million people comprising all of North Africa and the Middle East, minus Israel — amount to less than those of Finland: a country with one fiftieth the population. So convinced that some outside force — imperialists, Jews, oil companies, America, the CIA — is responsible for the failings of their once-great civilization, Arabs cannot handle any blow to their self-esteem. It's not so much dead Arabs which grates on their psyche but, the sting to their pride which comes when non-Muslim, non-Arabs do the killing. This is what makes smart people act stupid.

Indeed, this is hardly unique to Arabs. All over the world and throughout history national pride and cultural passions have driven nations to violence and folly. As Yale's Donald Kagan has written, "The common practice of calling such motives 'irrational' reveals how narrow the professional understanding of what matters to people has become in our day." He goes on: "The notion that only economic benefits, power and security are rational goals is a prejudice of our time, a product of the attempt to treat the world of human events as though it were the inanimate physical universe, susceptible to scientific analysis and free to ignore human feelings, motives, and will. Such an approach is no more adequate to explain current behavior than to explain the actions of human beings throughout history." (For more on this, see "Don't Kowtow Now.")

But if Arabs want to define their national interests in terms of pride and shame — as NR's David Pryce-Jones has argued so eloquently — that's fine; that's natural even. But that decision has serious costs. If the Iraqis side with pride and totalitarianism over realism and liberty; if the Arab propaganda machine and suicide-bomber networks decide that it would be better for Iraq to be a giant Lebanon free of Americans than to be an Arab Sweden with our help; if they decide that even one dead Iraqi at the hands of "infidels" is worse than 100,000 at the hands of Saddam; if they greet what can either beginning or the end of a rescue mission with bullets, then things will only worsen for the Arabs.

For that's what this is, a rescue mission. It may have been launched out of American self-interest, but that should make no difference to the Iraqis. And I still hope that the Iraqis will snap out of it and recognize we're there to help. Indeed, if they greet the U.S. with gratitude there really will be no end to American charity and assistance. We can point to Japan, South Korea, and Germany as evidence of the prosperity and decency we can help usher in. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, et al., can offer only Lebanon or some phantasmagorical Brigadoon plucked from the fantasies of jihadists. To those who can see clearly the interests of their children, this should not be a hard choice.

But it is a choice. If even after Saddam is gone, they shoot at the lifeboat and spit at its crew, America will simply confiscate the weapons we came for and leave. Many, many Americans will conclude that democracy cannot take root in Arab soil after all, and if they don't want our help we will say "to hell with them" — as we did to the Somalis. We will strike deals with murderers and thugs whenever profitable and contain those murderers when not. To borrow a phrase from Le Monde, we will declare "We Are All Frenchmen Now" and we will let Arabs kill Arabs (and yes, probably Israelis too) because it won't be our business — all because some desperate people are too proud to stop acting stupid.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: arabstreet; clashofcivilizatio; iraqifreedom; warlist; worldopinion
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To: headsonpikes
Gotcha!! Couldn't have said it better myself. That's why I don't care if I have to work 3 jobs and sleep only 4 hours in 24 for the rest of my life, my son will never step foot in one of these indoctrination centers!!
41 posted on 03/31/2003 10:29:02 AM PST by Ga Rob ("Consensus is the ABSENCE of Leadership" The Iron Lady)
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To: mercy
The reality is that the Arab world is under the spiritual subjugation of a slavish cult. It's sacrement is murder and they will gladly sacrifice thier own children to it at any oportunity. The Arab hates the infidel more than he loves his own flesh and blood.

There are cults and there are cults.

This cult is more along the lines of the worship of Moloch and Baal, who required the sacrifice of children, and whose spiritual source was Satanic.

Quite honestly, there should be a quaratine of this evil; at minimum I don't want it in my country.

42 posted on 03/31/2003 10:42:28 AM PST by happygrl
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To: Asher
bookmark bump
43 posted on 03/31/2003 11:09:56 AM PST by lepton
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To: Asher
"For decades, Arab governments and the newspapers they control have been pouring gasoline on the fire of Arab resentment toward Israel as a way to deflect attention from their own corrupt and impoverished regimes."

That one simple sentence says all you really need to know about the Mideast.

44 posted on 03/31/2003 11:15:38 AM PST by Ditto (You are free to form your own opinions, but not your own facts.)
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To: Ditto
Yep...in a nut shell that is all you need to know.

"You are free to form your own opinions, but not your own facts"....Awesome quote, I try and say this all the time and never get the words togther without sounding like an a$$.
45 posted on 03/31/2003 11:36:20 AM PST by Ga Rob ("Consensus is the ABSENCE of Leadership" The Iron Lady)
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To: philosofy123; Alouette
Condaleeza Rice is not the problem with respect to advisors, although I emphatically endorse Daniel Pipes as an addition. The problem with advisors is that President Bush was initially being influenced by his father and the Arabist oilmen like James Baker, as evidenced by that sad spectacle of the Saudi Prince with his "Peace Plan" descending on the Crawford Ranch.

I think that Bush has better instincts than any previous president with regard to the Middle East; he refuses to meet with Arafat and has taken an enormous gamble with his vision for Iraq as the poster child for a democratic Arab country.

Whether it suceeds or not, Bush has broken from the mold of the past of endless negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He is attempting to sweep the proverbial rug out from under the Arabs and remodel the Middle East in a way that hasn't been attempted in 100 years.

This is what will either suceed or fail; not more aid, but the choice for democracy. If the Arabs take the bait, investment, not aid will follow.

If it fails, then Fortress Israel will be necessary and a kind of quarantine of the Arab world.

46 posted on 03/31/2003 12:21:46 PM PST by happygrl
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To: Asher
The Arab world view is a selective collective. They live from berm to berm.
47 posted on 03/31/2003 12:25:51 PM PST by Consort
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To: happygrl
Quite honestly, there should be a quaratine of this evil; at minimum I don't want it in my country.

As much as I cherish freedom of religion, I tend to agree. I say you are free to worship as long as your worship doesnt consist of innocent people dying. And unfortunately, it looks like the Islamikazes have won the day in Islamic culture.

Save an innocent, close the mosques.
48 posted on 03/31/2003 12:42:19 PM PST by CaptainJustice (Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad!)
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To: Ga Rob
Logically I agree with your choice of terminology but on a gut level I can't help calling them stupid!
49 posted on 04/01/2003 5:50:14 AM PST by samtheman
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To: Willard White Speaking
You're right about shock therapy. But it has to be followed up by good information. Once we shock Iraq awake with freedom and liberation we've got to go over the heads of the state-run-media in the Arab countries and get the word out that what we did is good. Perhaps that means a big leaflet dropping campaign all across the Arab world. (While we're at it, we should drop some leaflets on US universities.)
50 posted on 04/01/2003 5:52:59 AM PST by samtheman
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To: samtheman
I hear ya!!

"Stupid is as Stupid does"
51 posted on 04/01/2003 5:56:29 AM PST by Ga Rob ("Consensus is the ABSENCE of Leadership" The Iron Lady)
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To: Asher
I'm no bean counter, but if our intent is to "massacre" Arabs, our tax dollars are being woefully misspent.

Dead on!

Every time I see thousands of sandmaggots "protesting", spittle flying everywhere, my first thought invariably is... what a great target!.

Yes, arab muslims are this stupid!

52 posted on 04/01/2003 6:02:07 AM PST by Publius6961 (p>)
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To: Pylot
I think the author makes the mistake of assuming that all citizens of Arab nations are free, educated and a able to articulate their position.

Nice try but I can't buy that.
Those thousands in rabid crowds that organize daily are articulating their position just fine, and clearly enough for me.
I don't see any guns to their heads.

Ignorance of history and denial of reality are poor tools for argumentation.

53 posted on 04/01/2003 6:10:53 AM PST by Publius6961 (p>)
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To: Publius6961
Haven't Arab-Muslims been breeding cousin-to-cousin for some time now? Close inbreeding doesn't help intelligence.
54 posted on 04/01/2003 6:15:59 AM PST by FITZ
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To: Ga Rob
And this is part of the problem. They act stupid, look stupid, are smart enough to realize that they appear stupid, which drives them into a frenzy of increasingly stupid activity.
55 posted on 04/01/2003 6:28:24 AM PST by samtheman
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To: Asher
The thing I always wondered about is who are the Arab police in their respective countries? How come these guys are banging heads instead of protesting? What incentive do these guys have that separates them from the rabble
56 posted on 04/01/2003 6:41:18 AM PST by this_ol_patriot
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To: this_ol_patriot
..oops cut off the rest..

I have the Jordanian police in mind in particular. They seem to be very much into their jobs. If other Arabs are so incensed why aren't these guys? What is their price?
57 posted on 04/01/2003 6:44:19 AM PST by this_ol_patriot
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To: Asher
In Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence ("...of Arabia") describes the Arab character with enduring insight. Principally, Lawrence recognized the split Arab mind, one capable of holding opposing thoughts without tripping the mental circuit breaker. The same process applies to the Arab's faith, which he practices with promiscuity.

I think you will recognize in Lawrence the personalities and cultural traits of the modern Arab:

This people was black and white, not only in vision, but by inmost furnishing: black and white not merely in clarity, but in apposition. Their thoughts were at ease only in extremes. They inhabited superlatives by choice. Sometimes inconsistents seemed to possess them at once in joint sway; but they never compromised: they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity. With cool head and tranquil judgement, imperturbably unconscious of the flight, they oscillated from asymptote to asymptote. *
[* asymptote is from the Greek geometry term for lines that approach but never meet]

......

The Beduin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God. He could not conceive anything which was or was not God, Who alone was great; yet there was a homeliness, an everyday-ness of this climatic Arab God, who was their eating and their fighting and their lusting, the commonest of their thoughts, their familiar resource and companion, in a way impossible to those whose God is so wistfully veiled from them by despair of their carnal unworthiness of Him and by the decorum of formal worship. Arabs felt no incongruity in bringing God into the weaknesses and appetites of their least creditable causes. He was the most familiar of their words; and indeed we lost much eloquence when making Him the shortest and ugliest of our monosyllables.

......

Arabs could be swung on an idea as on a cord; for the unpledged allegiance of their minds made them obedient servants. ... Without a creed they could be taken to the four corners of the world (but not to heaven) by being shown the riches of earth and the pleasures of it; but if on the road, led in this fashion, they met the prophet of an idea, who had nowhere to lay his head and who depended for his food on charity or birds, then they would all leave their wealth for his inspiration. They were incorrigibly children of the idea, feckless and colour-blind, to whom body and spirit were for ever and inevitably opposed. Their mind was strange and dark, full of depressions and exaltations, lacking in rule, but with more of ardour and more fertile in belief than any other in the world. They were a people of starts, for whom the abstract was the strongest motive, the process of infinite courage and variety, and the end nothing.

......

...To most of them the word was never given; for those societies were pro-Arab only, willing to fight for nothing but Arab independence; and they could see no advantage in supporting the Allies rather than the Turks, since they did not believe our assurances that we would leave them free. Indeed, many of them preferred an Arabia united by Turkey in miserable subjection, to an Arabia divided up and slothful under the easier control of several European powers in spheres of influence.

Italics and typos mine.
58 posted on 04/01/2003 8:43:32 AM PST by nicollo
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To: nicollo
sometimes it is really tough to be a conservative, republican, american, born in texas, from lebanese parents, when i read some of this stuff.

god bless the troops, the president and the usa....from a towel head in texas.....
59 posted on 04/01/2003 8:53:12 AM PST by dreamerintexas
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To: dreamerintexas
So you think Lawrence was wrong?

There is an over-riding cultural trait in Arab lands to maintain contradictary beliefs. Reminds one of American liberals, in fact.

You see it in the duplicity of Arafat, the House of Saud, and the Arab press, in general. You see it in the prevalent use of a religion to define all things good and bad, excusing its own bad while damning the good of others. You see it in the devestation of your old Beiruit, formerly one of the greatest cities and cultures of the world.

Get beyond reaction and tell me how Lawrence was wrong. He may well have described many other peoples and cultures, but we're talking about Arabs here.
60 posted on 04/01/2003 9:15:55 AM PST by nicollo
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