Over 200 years and going strong
Declan
I believe that the premise that they all hate us is false. I believe that it is a half-truth, and it is something that can be changed, over time, and with effort. I believe that the combined efforts of the Bush Administration and Al Qaeda have set us back for a few more generations.
Moreover, I believe that the Average Joe and the Average Achmed can get along perfectly fine.
I believe that in situations like this, one side has to display their peaceful intentions first, at the risk of getting shot down, and then do it again and, if need be, again.
Unlike Declan, who is at the opposite extreme, and believes that they are “culturally incapable” of anything of this sort. This is basic politics, not a game of Risk.
History must be interesting in Declanland O_o
The nice thing about that , is that I am not alone in that view. Your views however are interesting to put it mildly , most amusing.
Declan
Yea, it is sad how uneducated most of the country is 
Exactly. My concern is not the Arab version of the redneck masses - but the more educated, middle-class Arabs who are well travelled and experienced in the world. Losing their opinion IS disturbing.
Generally, most people in a rational mood obviously distinguish between Bush and the American public. This is helped somewhat by the fact that Bush didn’t even get a majority at the last election 
However: faced with daily pictures of bloody and wounded and dying and dead Arabs - both in Iraq and Palestine - even the educated, businesslike, westernised Arabs really lose it.
Personally speaking: living here, I get sick of much of the redneck islamist railing against the “West” and “Western culture” and I am also thoroughly sick of the culture that allows 24/7 coverage of intense violence but goes schizo over the merest hint of flesh in a film. “Make love not war” could do with some promotion here!
On the other hand, even though I actually avoid watching the extreme gore, violence and bloodshed in the media here, just seeing what is going on via the BBC website and Reuters makes me hugely empathise with much of the anger here. And this is true also for expat Americans here: imagine their frustration at living and working among these people, getting a better understanding of them, then seeing their clueless government blundering in making error after (often fatal) error with a stunning combination of ignorance and arrogance.
I shall not get any better if Bush and his clowns get an other term.
You said it: when in a “rational mood”. And there certainly is not much interest in the Bush election circus when you go outside the larger cities or even inside the cities going outside the circles of those who actually understand/speak English.
I think it would be better if the people in the USA were confronted with the same information.
Imagine yourself how sick people like me get from a US president who does nothing else then provoking the “redneck islamists” to pop up and flourish like mushrooms.
Maybe for you own sanity you should get out of there before you end up in a madhouse.
Yes. I can sympathize with people like you, yet you seem to blame the Arab media for the bloodshed they show. Maybe it is all staged to put those who are said to cause it in a bad light… Yet I have doubts about that.
I suppose you would feel better if it was wiped under the carpet like is done on US media. Maybe for the sake of sanity that would be indeed better.
Salaam. A
After reading the posts of Declan I think we have reason to celebrate.
An other Scholar In Islam and Arab World.
Welcome. Don’t hesitate to spread your exquisit wisdom.
Salaam. A
Arab. M-Eastern. Muslim = As “cultural incapable” as you can get.
So far, the only point I’ve seen is that since the Iraq invasion “the Arab masses” will hate the US more, assuming they didn’t already hate us as much as they possibly could while still hating Israel.
I had actually started this thread to ask what the MENA leaders had learned.
My first thought was that they learned “not to mess with the US because when they say they’ll invade and that they want regime change they mean it.” In a simplistic way I had expected the Arab/Iran leaders to think long and hard before they support terrorism or even think about acquiring WMD.
At least, this is what I thought 6 weeks after the invasion. A year and a half after the invasion I’ve swung 180. It occurred to me that if Syria started a WMD program and the US found out, no one would listen. The entire world would unanimously shout, “yeah right, like the WMD is Iraq?”
It was also apparent that the US populace would never back another military operation. If Pres. Bush tried to go to Congress now and ask for another invasion they’d laugh him off the Hill. So if Saudi Arabia decided to annex Qatar who’s to stop them?
The third thing I think the Arab leaders have learned is that having both the US and Israel as a scapegoat makes oppressing their people twice as easy.
The last thing I think they learned, from the links in the OP, is that their own populace (the average Ahmed) has become a lot more globally aware. Right now Arabs are protesting against US torture and US occupation. It won’t be long before they put two and two together and realize that their OWN leaders torture them, and their OWN leaders (or Princes, Emirs, etc) are occupying them. My hope is that democracy (or some form of it) follows.
I think that to a very large degree the sexual backwardness of Islamic culture as it is practiced in the Middle East (some more than other, I know) is what generates all the emotional fury that makes the Middle East so hard to deal with. No one believe this or accepts this, because they like to think “politics” controls “sex” and not vice versa. But when your culture makes it extremely hard for young men to get properly laid in their teens and twenties, you have your crazed thisnthats all ready to die for any reason, or no reason at all, because the real reason is they wanna get laid and they can’t.
A long-term plan to change Islamic culture in this respect would make the world a much safer place.
And your point is …
The treaty required six months notice before disolving it, sounds like the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed.
And , is that what you would call a contract , or a compact ?
Declan
I disagree with your assertion that Islam (you said “Islamic culture”) makes it extremely hard for young men to get properly laid in their teens and twenties.
It just encourages (more accurately, requires) them to marry first.
Look at the Web sites about Islam, they are brimming with advice about all matters relating to sex. Very open, too.
http://www.islamonline.net/QuestionApplication/English/Browse.asp
http://sistani.org/html/eng/main/index.php?page=4&part=1
http://www.islamonline.net/Matrimonial/English/try.asp
I’m not taking a position on the other assertions in your post, e.g., whether it is “backward” (it is, of course, different in many ways than “our” culture).
Like they weren’t perfectly aware of this previously…
All Arabs are bad. All Arabs have been provoking the US for 35 years. We must start a war against Arabs in general, and kill as many as possible because they’re all bad and all provoking us.
There’re one or two slight flaws in your logic there - if only I were capable of picking them!
What on Earth are you talking about? Leaving aside the idea that all Arabs have an inbuilt inability to agree, which “hostage thing” are you referring to? Iran in 79? Lebanon in the 80s? Where the hell were there any caliphs at that time? You’ve gotta cut back on the crack, dude.
Emm, no flaws , just no compromise either. Your just a bit too civilized. If it were only a small percentage of individuals , that every country has , then it would be different. But funny people dancing in the streets after the towers had fallen , sorta loses my objectivity towards islam as a whole.
They are the enemy of our times , and one side will prevail.
Where do you think the idea of the recent examples of hostages came from ? During the 1000’s to the 1400’s hostages were routinely exchanged by parties, for the express purpose of garunteeing deals or agreements. Since the hostages were relatives or family of the agreed upon parties , breaking deals ended with the death of hostages.
As for Caliphs , I dont believe one has existed since probably the eighteen century, possibly turkey was the last of the caliphates. As for its relevance , its been mentioned as part of a new UAR , a caliph would cut across different poltical spectrums, that no president or prime minister could.
It was also one of the things that osama was being hailed, by the average person shortly after 9/11.
Sorry if you think I am using crack , but nope.
Declan
Well, why just Muslims? Why not Arabs? Or Middle Easterners as a whole? How about brown people? At what point should one stop attributing blame? Exactly how many people should be killed then?
There’s an awful lot of Arabs out there - why don’t we invade the Yemen, since they’re as responsible for 9/11 as the Iraqis. There’s an awful lot of Muslims out there - why don’t we go invade Malaysia? There sure are a heck of a lot of brown people out there - why don’t we just drop a few atom bombs? Couple of hundred missiles in the Middle East and Africa ought to do it. After that, we can wipe out the Japanese for Pearl Harbour.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s more, by pretending to know what you are talking about, you are effectively lying. The most cursory of web searches would reveal that people have been taking hostages since ancient times. The Romans used to take hostages from various barbarian tribes and hold them to ensure the tribes would behave. One particularly famous and interesting case was Theodoric. Another was Arminius, sometimes called Hermann.
The last person to make a serious claim to the title of Caliph was the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. I believe that this claim lapsed, along with the empire, after WWI, in 1924. Not the ‘eighteen century’, though you were almost right about Turkey.
UAR is United Arab Republic and was a short-lived confederation of Egypt and Syria in the early 60s. This was related to Arab Nationalism and had nothing to do with Islamism and caliphs.
Someone pronouncing themselves as Caliph today would merely get laughed at. The name alone would never rally people, and the institution holds no interest for many Arabs or Muslims. Islam is not, for most people in the Middle East, their primary point of identification.
Which average person? Where? The average member of al Qaeda, do you mean? Do you have a poll or a survey perhaps? Otherwise, I’d be inclined to believe that you’ve pulled it out of your arse like the rest of your “facts”.
Damn straight I’m too civilized to condone wholesale slaughter of “funny people”. It’s the barbarous views of people like yourself that scare me.
The whole question is arrogant. What has the Arab world learnt?
Why should that world have anything to learn? It wasn’t a debacle of their making. Learn from your mistakes yes, but exactly whose mistakes lead to this debacle.
I doubt the war has done anything more than confirm what the Arab world already knew.
No. I just feel that saturation coverage of the goriest stuff they can find is often less than helpful. Sure: certain pictures need to be shown. But not 24/7 - I think a slight rarity value would add far greater impact.
Also children should be more protected from some of these images. Because it is much, much harder for children to put them in perspective - and so they can grow up inspired with a permanent, violent hatred that is not helpful in the long term, creating a greater tendency towards fundamentalism and extremism. It is not a good thing to foster violence in the young and impressionable by exposing them to this stuff.
Some things “Arabs” might have learned IMHO:
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US politicians and public for whatever reason are always too much pro-Israel and therefore the USA will never be a good mediator for the palestinian issue or a good “liberator”.
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Moderate Arabs have seen the US can use ideology as much as radical arabs.
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That arabs are much more divided and weak than they probably imagined “overall”, not only militarily.
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That the UN cannot by itself hold back the US from doing “bad things”. On the other hand that the UN is one of the few ways to even try to counter US power.
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That propaganda and news have a blurry line in between. Baghdad Bob being a good example. Freedom of press will be hard to hold back. Once Al Jazeera stops bashing Bush it will go back to mucking dictators.