Originally from the Los Angeles Times: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- The invitation one afternoon this week was for a ladies' tea -- a social event at the home of the U.S. ambassador's wife, Ann Jordan. Courteous behavior was called for, even if a war between Americans and Arabs was unfolding a mere 300 miles away in Iraq. Tea was served. Polite introductions and pleasantries were shared. Children were inquired about. A platter of smoked salmon finger sandwiches got passed around. That's when the gloves came off. Fawziya Abu Khaled, a poet and academic, put down her teacup and looked at the Americans with defiance, her voice almost shaking with determination and quiet fury. It had been hard, she said, to accept an invitation to come to the U.S. ambassador's residence -- the lair of the enemy, really -- at a time when the U.S. is waging war against an Arab state. Most of her friends, she said, had politely declined Jordan's invitation. The few who came, she said, did so because the Americans needed to hear what they had to say. The other Saudi women nodded in agreement. Jordan looked vaguely alarmed. "This war is making people pro-Saddam, because it's not fair that you come from outside and remove a president, even if he is a dictator," she declared. "You thought the Iraqis would join you and fight for their freedom, but people instead of fighting for their freedom are standing behind him. And this isn't what anyone wanted to see!" I look forward to the type of discourse on women, war, and politics only those at BS can provide...
But of course the type of pampered Arab woman who is invited to tea at embassies will be against the forced removal of a dictator. Her position in society is maintained and protected by one.
Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US With due appreciation for the hypocrisy of any Saudi elite lecturing anyone else about dictatorships or democracy, the person does have at least this shred of a point: Just because you yourself see yourself as a "liberator" doesn't necessarily mean that people whose homes you're destroying and whose families you are killing will see it that way even if they happen to live under a ruthless dictator. Think of it this way. What if the EU decided to "liberate" us poor Americans from a President who received less than half the popular vote but was instralled anyway and SCOTUS justices and an Attorney General hell-bent on removing our rights? Supposing they had the military capacity to come here and invade us, would 100% of all Americans rush to welcome them with open arms? Or would our feelings of national pride (let alone religious beliefs) cause us to resist or to give only lip service to our new "liberators"? OK, my example is deliberately facetious, but I hope you get the point.
Re: Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US I kinda sorta see what you're saying. However, you must keep in mind that a lot the resistance is being led into battle at gunpoint, soviet style. A lot of the injured Iraqis captured at Nasiriya and Najaf have been telling this story. i'm not saying we haven't misguaged their attitude towards us, but i think what i said must be pointed out.
Re: Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US I'm against this war but have no doubt that the vast majority of Iraqis will be better off once Saddam is gone. For a propagandist of the Saudi regime to claim the common Iraqi would prefer to fight for his/her dictator out of some nationalist's wet dream of Arab solidarity is a joke.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US Iraqi soldiers may fight for a variety of reasons but that was not the Saudi persons' point and not mine either. I was thinking more of the failure of the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam as the Bush team was clearly counting on.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US Dude, same rings true in the cities. I don't think you get it, no disrespect. People arn't going to rise up when you've got roving gangs of militiamen shooting possible uprisers.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US Like I said, you think this and I think this but they don't necessary see it that way, especially when their homes are wrecked and they've lost family members. Agreed. The messenger is a joke but that doesn't automatically make 100% of ther message false, which is what I had hoped to convey by saying "With due appreciation for the hypocrisy of any Saudi elite lecturing anyone else about dictatorships or democracy...". Obviously, I was wrong in thinking I'd emphasized that enough to make it clear. Maybe that's why Karl Keller likes capital letters so much...
"What, us worry?" - B. Mussolini and N. Caucescu Then the Bush adminstration fucked up royally by counting on the uprising.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US But the message is 100% false. The Iraqis aren't choosing to stand behind their dictator rather than fight for freedom. As they see it, those aren't even the options.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ladies' Tea Boils Over as Saudis Rail at US It depends on what they see as "freedom". Please note I said what they see as freedom and not what we see as freedom. I really wish we had some Muslim troops as part of our forces because I'm sure that not all Iraqi Muslims are thrilled at the prospect of being conquered by non-Iraqi non-Muslims. Just because an Iraqi isn't for us doesn't mean he for Saddam just like not all US soldiers are "fighting for George Bush and the Republican Party" as much as Ian and Axis Alex would like to believe otherwise. And I also think that trying to explain the lack of support by the populace as 100% caused by "they have a gun to their heads" is a cop out and will lead to tragedy later if we start believing our own press releases. I'm sure that's a large part of the reason but it's not 100% and if we're going to "win the peace" we'd damn well better understand that.
I saw a 'Middle Eastern Scholar' (god, is this a fat time for them, or what) on charlie rose last night talking about the Shia and the lack of welcome for the US. He pointed out that the Ayatollah Khomeni had tried for the entire course of the iran-iraq war to get them to turn against the sunni baathist party and had never had any success. We frankly underestimated the force of nationalism and anti-colonial sentiment in Iraq. Without any appreciable uprisings (and the one in Basra looks like it was non-existant), we look like every other colonial power that's entered the middle east in the past century.
I should also add that it's ridiculous for Saudis to lecture the US on this and that smoked salmon sandwiches sound great right about now.
It will be difficult to be pro-Saddam after he's dead. And if Muslim mosques try to make a holy martyr out of a butcher - a butcher of Muslims - then the politically correct ought to be asked again whether the anger in the so-called Arab street isn't really entirely a creation of Islam, or at the very least seized on and cultivated by Islamic leadership to the point of frenzy. I find it difficult to watch a report like Friedman's documentary last night which demonstrated the depth of belief in ridiculous 9/11 lies (e.g., 4,000 Jews didn't come to work because they knew that the US govt. was going to blow up the towers). This belief doesn't arise out of nowhere. So, who's in charge of the clear anti-US propaganda campaign. My conclusion is that religious zealots are the ultimate source. If that's the case - and I'm certain that one could argue that the real culprit is the Saudi family rather than religious "leaders" - how can Islam be held unaccountable?
Some Islamic zealots already hate Saddam. Who was the guy who made that tape excoriating Saddam again? Oh yes, Osama bin Laden. How about the American belief that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks? Where did THAT come from? Because "Islam" is a big tent that accomodates both peaceful seekers after God and violent lunatics? Kinda like Christianity.