TRAGEDY OF THE ARABS

New York Post ^ | March 30, 2003 | RALPH PETERS

[yonif]

March 30, 2003 -- TV networks in the Arab world gloat as they broadcast pictures of American prisoners executed by Saddam's thugs. They report every Iraqi lie as if it contains unassailable truth, while mocking each report of allied success. They promise their viewers Iraq is winning the war. They betray their own people by doing so, setting up Arabs for yet another psychological catastrophe.

[Hildy]

A message of sanity and reality.

[LS]

I have even seen some good arguments that the so-called era of Muslim "science" was largely taken from Green, Egyptian, and Roman archives that the Muslim armies overran, and is highly over-rated, even in the "golden years."

See Jack Goldstone's great article in "Sociological Inquiry," "Cultural Orthodoxy, Risk, and Innovation."

[expatguy]

Im just sure that Khomeini, Assad and King Faud are just thrilled beyond belief to see Democracy opening up shop right next to them.

[Keith]

I am handing this out to history classes tomorrow...

[Young Rhino]

No Arab society fully respects the rights of women or minorities.

There is one area in which Arab societies have surpassed the U.S. In Vermont, we allow civil unions. No goat or camel is safe in the Arab world.

Arabs have also achieved the hygiene habits of their French friends. Chirac must be so proud.

[KaiserofKrunch]

Another wonderful piece by the consistently excellent Ralph Peters. My only question is if the Arabs will really believe the truth when it is revealed after SH falls.

[Keith]

Khomeni is taking a dirt nap...there have been very public demonstrations against the Mullahs in Iran...it is highly likely that this endeavor will only speed their publically caused demise.

[crazykatz]

BUMP

[crazykatz]

One can hope!!

[ggekko]

"I have even seen some good arguments that the so-called era of Muslim "science" was largely taken from Green, Egyptian, and Roman archives...."

The so-called Golden Age of Islamic science is largely a bit of perfervid wish-fulfillment of Arab-philic Western and Islamic academics. There was a true Golden of Age of Persian mathematics in which a number seminal concepts were developed.

Science never developed in the Islamic world because it was supressed by Islamic clerics who declared the Koran to the final and complete revelation of knowledge to mankind. By contrast Science did develop in Western Christian civilization because of the doctrine developed by St. Thomas Aquinas of the Bible and the "Book of Nature" being joint revelations from God.

[BunnySlippers]

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[Bob J]

Opposition forces in Iran are waiting for Saddam to fall to make their move.

[Bob J]

Iraq was never the only goal of this endeavor.

[VaBthang4]

"The most important thing for Americans to grasp about the impotent fury of the Arab world is that it isn't really about us. It's about their own internal demons."

Bam.

[Voltage]

Excellent article...but I have my doubts that a society dominated by Islam can really succeed in the modern world.

[yianni]

Satire is the ultimate weapon to provoke insight. Mobilize the Mel Brooks Division.

[Hildy]

Since this is an Arab "Facts" thread, I must say that although I dislike the French at the moment, it would be cruel and inhumane to say their hygiene is as bad as the Arabs. I lived in Israel for a time when I was young and travelled on many busses and cars with Arabs. Enough said. Plus, I talked about this once before and it cannot be said enough about what pigs the Arab men are in general. My Christmas Eve in Bethlehem in 1977 will go down as one of the worst and frightening nights of my life as I and most of the Western women I saw there were fondled and worse by the Arab residents. It was unbelievable then, and I'm sure it's worse there now.

[faithincowboys]

brilliant! This is similiar to what many have said --the arab intellectuals have sold out the arab people. The intellectuals and media hacks have become complicit in tyranny. Raghida Durgin and Ashwari and al jazeera have much to atone for.

Sickening!

Freedom For Iraq!

[Salman]

* It contains not a single world-class university.

No. There is one. The University of Fez (Morocco) is the oldest in the world. It was where Fibonacci studied mathemetics back in the 1200's.

They still have a serious mathemeatics department.

[Hildy]

Isn't Morocco really considered more Northern Africa?

[Cicero]

Excellent analysis. God bless the New York Post. Another year or two and they will pass the NY Times on the intellectual as well as the moral level.

[Cicero]

It takes more than a mathematics department to make a great university, although that's a good start. You need the basic arts and sciences as well, history, world literature, the classics, philosophy--you name it.

[UnChained]

The absurdities broadcast and printed throughout the Arab world are symptoms of a once-great culture's moral desolation

Is there a parallel here in France's hatred of the English and the US? French was once the language of culture and commerce. They've lost their greatness and are now full of resentment at the new "lingua franqa"

[logan five]

absolutely spot on.... a simply outstanding analysis.. my thoughts -- and general approach to most things "insane" ... captured exactly but expressed with more focus and more cogently than my skills will admit....

[razorbak]

Many Arabs who know the truth play to the street to stay in power, just like "black leaders" in America. And they keep their constituents whipped up into a perpetual frenzied state of paranoia, hatred and envy.

[Stultis]

Warrior/scholar Ralph Peters nails it again!

[Mamzelle]

I taught Saudi and Iranian men in college classrooms for a couple years...though I was twenty at the time, and not unused to a little attention, I was continually uncomfortable with the odd way they looked at me. It wasn't your normal leer, which at least has a bit of wholesome good health about it--but this awful hatefulness mixed in. Like "I'll &^%$ you, then I'll kill you," kind of look. Shudder. And there were not a few gals taken with that kind of thing...

[skraeling]

>I taught Saudi and Iranian men in college classrooms for a couple years

So did I, and I found them to be "unserious" at best. One of them threatened to kill a fellow teacher if he failed him in a course.

[skraeling]

...their biggest concern after endless playing was in simply passing, for if they failed, their generous stipends from home would be cut off and they would be required to return home. Anything was better than that, even doing a little studying and attending class from time to time.

[Mamzelle]

Did you observe that there was a certain sort of female that seemed to gravitate to these students? These gals simply perplexed me, but I was too young to understand self-destructiveness, neurosis, and masochism, which form a strong impulse in so many women.

[skraeling]

Yep, they had their own set of groupies.

[Alouette]

Baghdad was once the center of Arab culture, of science and the arts, and a beacon of human progress.

That was B.M. (Before Mohammed)