Where Will All That Arab Anger Go?

Business Week ^ | 4-14-03 | By Stanley Reed in Damascus, with Susan Postlewaite in Cairo

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The College of Islamic Law at the University of Damascus is a hotbed of the antiwar movement in Syria. In its cavernous stone entryway, students mill around near a display of cartoons criticizing the conflict in Iraq. In one frame, Uncle Sam grinds the U.N. under his boot. In another, a figure representing Israel drags an empty-headed America into combat with the Iraqis. Looking on, a group of young female students, scarves wrapped around their heads, talk excitedly.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

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[Poohbah]

F*** 'em if they can't take a joke.

[3AngelaD]

Oh, no. Don't tell me the huge Syrian economy is going to turn its back on American goods. Guess that means they'll have to forgo the Internet, too. I'm waiting for that to happen. The pinheaded Assad had better watch his back.

[Sir Gawain]

Whoopty doo.

[3AngelaD]

Forgot to say: This rag, Business Week, is owned by the Washington Post and shares its agenda. I would take anything said here with a huge grain of salt.

[dark_lord]

Fortunately for us, if we are going to have a group mad at us, it is the arabs. Let's see their list of accomplishments in the last century or so.

Created a great new system of government? Nope.
Developed flourishing economic systems? Nope.
Great military power? Nope.
Produced great scientists, artists, authors? Nope.
Great medical discoveries for mankind? Nope.
Leading the human race in human rights? Nope.

Well, what the heck have they done? Answer -- zip. Nada. Nothing.

Now that we have noticed them (thanks to 9/11) I don't think they can do too much to harm us without putting their societies into extinction. (Of course, like other immigrant groups, most of the best ones have already immigrated over here and are Americans. Heh.)

[bert]

Anger is energy. Energy is useful and can be the directed to the machines of growth. If there is a glimmer of a future, the hope can be used to channel the energy.

That is the plan, the roadmap, the future.

[curmudgeonII]

They hated our guts before the war.
Where's the change?

[dighton]

This time they're really really REALLY mad.

[Kiss Me Hardy]

Business Week isn't owned by the Washington Post -- you're thinking of Newsweek. Business Week is part of the McGraw-Hill stable.

[Maceman]

Unless the U.S. finds a way to win over Arab hearts and minds, the legacy of the war may be greater anti-Americanism

They may continue to hate us, but at least they're learning better than to screw with us anymore.

Doing nothing just encourages them, as we saw throughout the 90s and on 9/11. LIberally kicking their butts at least has the advantage of letting them know they are doomed if they continue to act out their murderous delusions.

[T'wit]

>> "All the fundamentalist movements in the Arab world have been strengthened."

Oh, I don't know about that. Before, the fundamentalists attributed the success of their cowardly little ambushes to Allah being on their side. Now that they have been utterly routed in battle -- in Afghanistan, too -- it comes back to haunt them. They just learned that, at the least, their thinking was wrong and that Allah is not blessing their cause.

[KeyWest]

Arab moderates blame the U.S. for sowing turmoil in the aftermath of September 11. "The U.S. has caused instability in the region," says Abdel Moneim Said Aly, chairman of the Al-Ahram Center. "All the fundamentalist movements in the Arab world have been strengthened."

So let me get this straight. We respond to a direct attack on the US by muslim fanatics and we are wrong because we strengthen them.

So we should have pulled a Clinton and apologized for erecting buildings that were representative as an affont to muslims and let them keep attacking us so they would not be strengthened. I guess, if you are a muslim, that makes sense.

But it seems that the opposite has taken hold. We destroy a bunch of inflamed Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq and they seem to be more interested in explaining to each other why they are inflamed. Plus no attacks against the US since 9/11 from all those inflamed Muslims. Works for me.

[Poohbah]

Let them hate us all they wish, so long as they fear us more.

[3AngelaD]

You're right. Why did I think that? Could it be that sometimes the writers jump from back and forth?

[TomServo]

F*** 'em if they can't take a joke.

LOL! Agree - and thanks for your Service, Poobah.

[dogbyte12]

Ok... unemployed college students with no disposable income to speak of in Syria are going to boycott american products?

I am saddened... deeply saddened.

Ya see while the poor masses on the streets were boycotting american products that they couldn't buy anyways... there heroes like Uday Hussein and Tariq Azizz were spending their boatloads of money on american foods, movies, books, etc.

They are sheep. When will they ever see it?

[Publius6961]

Make that half a millenium!

And add:
Made advances in medicine.
Landed on the moon.
Advanced knowledge of the earth's distance past.
Created marvels of flying transportation.
Fed half the world...

This is too easy.
Susan Pterodon will accuse us of "piling on"! Horrors!

[Media Insurgent]

"The question now is whether the Arab world's anger against America will gradually dissipate -- or be channeled against their own regimes."

I suspect that this "anger" like so much else to come out of the Arab world, is a lot of hot air without much action to back it up. The vaunted "Arab Street" reminds me of a bullying braggart that you might encounter in a bar- a big talker until someone actually challenges him to show how tough he is. At that point he meekly makes some lame excuse about why he can't and then shuts up.

As far as I can tell, the only way that angry Arabs have successfully vented their anger are through surprise attacks unarmed civilians. They have yet to show they can accomplish anything against a vigilant, well-armed foe.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

the antiwar movement in Syria

The sheer absurdity of calling this an 'antiwar movement' makes me giggle.

[edsheppa]

Don't worry, they've always got the wife and kids as an outlet.

[Poohbah]

Don't worry, they've always got the wife and kids as an outlet.

And the family cat.

[Helms]

"Where Will All That Arab Anger Go?"

In otherwords..

" Now That the French, Germans and Saudi Elites Have Successfully Turned the Mideast into South Central, How Can They be Told They Have Been Duped?... Ask the Democrats!

[joesnuffy]

The Syrian leadership can only stay in power with the goods they leeched off Iraq

When that well runs dry the Sryian leadership has nothing with which to hold power of its own people..

Shut off the pumps and Syria will have to go begging somewhere else OR
Flush its Baath Party members

Hopefully the people will rise up against them as they did in Iraq when given the choice..

Syria without Iraqi handouts is finished and its leadership is panic stricken..

Trying to stir its brainwashed youth into picking up weapons...aka committing suicide...

Syria needs to rise up knowing that what has happened in Iraq can happen for them as well...
They can rid themselves of their evil dictator and the thugs who opress them and the other arab nations

[martianagent]

Where Will All That Arab Anger Go?

Need some sort of an outlet for it you say? How about S&M? If we could sell them enough whips, paddles, spurs, riding crops etc. etc., maybe they could take it out on eachother, and there might actually be money in it...

[headsonpikes]

"F***'em if they can't take a joke."

Exactly. I guess they haven't got the memo: 'Arab Street Closed for Renovations'.

[MoodyBlu]

I have a serious question for anyone to answer. Can someone please explain to me why the farmer in Iraq, or the student in Syria, or the street sweeper in Pakistan gives a damn about the "Palestinians"? I have never been able to understand why it's always written and said that peace can never come to the Middle East until the Israeli/Palestinian problem is addressed.

What is the connection between the people mentioned above and the Palestinians? Does the average, poor person in some sh!t hole of a Middle eastern country really give a damn about the Palestinians?

[Billthedrill]

It is a mistake to portray these people as being neutral until our activities in Iraq turned them against us. They are nothing of the kind. These are the ones convinced of their own self-righteousness who dance in the streets when Americans are killed. They are not our friends. And they are not open to friendship - it would threaten their entire worldview.

I might be wrong, of course, and we'll see. Because if a democratic Iraq doesn't turn their opinions around - and I hold that it will not - then not much else will.

[xJones]

A brother of one student and a cousin of another have traveled to Iraq to fight the coalition forces. "Lots of young people are willing to give their lives," says one young woman.

What a pity for them, they stand a good chance of being shot by Iraqis.

[Poohbah]

The Palestinians are used as a whipping boy to get the people to ignore how their own despots are brutally mistreating them.

[prairiebreeze]

Does the average, poor person in some sh!t hole of a Middle eastern country really give a damn about the Palestinians?

My personal opinion is not really. The Palestinian/Israli situation is a convenient excuse for being angry at America. Arabs utilize a LOT of "convenient thinking" in justification of their viewpoints.

"It seems to me a certainty that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degredation of the Arab women are the outstanding causes for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have been developing." ---Gen. George S. Patton

Prairie

[MissAmericanPie]

Is someone critizing us? Fold the tents quick, lest anyone talk bad about us. When you recognize evil, and stand for good, you can expect a great deal of howling from the morally void that calls our stand, "primitive moralizing".

The world needs a good dose of primitive moralizing and like with everything else, the U.S. must lead the way. The U.N. won't like it, the E.U. won't like it, Russia and China won't like it, but then, they profit from evil and are themselves evil, so where is the suprise in their stance?

I hope our elected leaders have the moral fortitude to face down evil where ever it is found, in the Middle East or in the Palestinian Authority in Israel.

[b4its2late]

This whole thing is a bunch of crap. Like they didn't hate us before the war in Iraq?

At least now they know that someone will hold them responsible for the hate they brought to our soil on September 11, 2001 and for any future acts. Just like the Japanese, they woke up a sleeping giant.....

[browardchad]

The sheer absurdity of calling this an 'antiwar movement' makes me giggle.

This article seems to be written for the ignorant, or someone who's just woken up from a long-term coma. Calling virulent anti-Americanism in a terrorist-supporting state "the anti-war movement" is only one of the sops in this article. Here's a few more:

Islamic militancy.

The correct term is "Islamism," from the people who brought us 9/11.

a swelling of the ranks of militant Islamic groups that make use of the Internet to recruit. That's happening even in secular Syria.

Laughable, considering that Syria has been encouraging and harboring terrorists up close and personal for years -- they don't need the internet. As far as being "secular," so was the Iraqi regime.

Already, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest group representing the Shiite majority, is uneasy about U.S. postwar plans. "The Shiites are not going to accept a military government forever," warns Bayan Jabor, SCIRI's representative for Syria and Lebanon.

Citing this group as somehow legitimate, without noting that it is harbored and fostered by the hostile regimes of Syria and Iran, is ludicrous. We know how well the "Islamic Revolution" is working in Iran.

Assad could be frozen out of the region's new order

As if anyone in the U.S. contemplated the Baathist Assad as an ally in reconstruction.

[sheik yerbouty]

'Turban Renewal'

[headsonpikes]

"Turban Renewal"

Don't be insultan. Let Chiraq give the umma a humma.

I'm calling the bailiff for the caliph.

[geedee]

Is there such a thing as a non-angry or, Allah forbid, a happy Arab?

[sheik yerbouty]

You will offend the effendis and impotentates!

[headsonpikes]

'Is you an Arab leader? You must be impo'tant.

[sheik yerbouty]

I am Al Haj Sheik Yerbouty, The Ayatollah of Rock 'n rolla!

[sheik yerbouty]

If you's impotent, ya gots ta look impotent!

[headsonpikes]

And certainly no one's looking more impotent than Arab sheiks!

(present company excluded, natch)