An Article by Ralph Peters

Tates

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<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/03302003/postopinion/opedcolumnists/72148.htm">TRAGEDY OF THE ARABS

By RALPH PETERS </a>
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.

Our natural response to the Arab world's phenomenal lies is anger: We resent their indecency in glorifying murder and war crimes. We cannot understand how anyone can believe these gruesome fairy tales for adults.

My advice is to ignore the Arabs. Hand-wringing about Arab TV disinformation or about the rage of the Arab street is a waste of our time. We cannot convince them and we cannot force them to change.

The best we can do - even for the Arabs - is to get on with America's agenda of liberation.

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.

The absurdities broadcast and printed throughout the Arab world are symptoms of a once-great culture's moral desolation, of the comprehensiveness of Arab failure. The Arabian Nights have long since turned into the Arabian nightmare.

The inability of the Arab world to compete with the West in any field of endeavor (even their efforts at terrorism ultimately fail) has been so devastating to the Arab psychology that they are desperate for someone to blame for what they and their grotesque leaders have done to their own culture.

Without the United States - and, of course, Israel - as excuses for Arab political squalor, Arabs might have to engage in self-examination, to ask themselves, "How have we failed so badly?"

They prefer to blame others, to sleepwalk through history, and to cheer when tyrants and terrorists "avenge" them.

On one level, Arabs know that Saddam Hussein is a monster. They know he has killed more Arabs than Israel ever could do. Saddam has been the worst thing to happen to Mesopotamia since the Mongols razed Baghdad. But Arabs are so jealous and discouraged that they need to inflate even Saddam into a hero. They have no one else.

Try to understand how broken the Arab world must be, how pitiful, if the celebrated Arab "triumph" of this war is the execution of prisoners in cold blood and the display of a few POWs on TV.

We would be foolish to descend to their level and gloat. The world would be better off were Arab civilization a success. We all should pray that the Arab world might, one day, be better governed and more equitable, that Arab peoples might join us in the march of human progress, instead of fleeing into reveries of bygone glories.

But the obstacles Arabs have erected for themselves are enormous. For all of the oil revenue that has flowed into the wealthier Arab countries, consider the overall state of the Arab world:

* It does not produce a single manufactured product of sufficient quality to sell on world markets.

* Arab productivity is the lowest in the world.

* It contains not a single world-class university.

* The once-great tradition of Arab science has degenerated into a few research programs in the fields of chemical and biological warfare.

* No Arab state is a true democracy.

* No Arab state genuinely respects human rights.

* No Arab state hosts a responsible media.

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

* No Arab government has ever accepted public responsibility for its own shortcomings.

This is a self-help world. We can't force Arab states to better themselves. If Arabs prefer to dream of imaginary triumphs while engaging in fits of very real savagery, they're their own ultimate victims.

Is there any hope? Yes: Iraq.

While building the Iraq of tomorrow must be done by the Iraqis themselves, we would be foolish not to give them every reasonable assistance.

With their oil reserves, a comparatively educated population and their traditionally sophisticated (compared to other Arabs) outlook, the Iraqis are the best hope the region has of building a healthy modern state.

It isn't going to be easy, and it is going to take years, not months. But the Iraqis have the chance to begin the long-overdue transformation of Arab civilization.

For all the shouting and hand-waving in the Arab world, the truth is that Arabs have a deep inferiority complex. They're afraid they really might not be able to build a successful modern state - to say nothing of a post-modern, information-based society.

If Iraq could do even a fair job of developing a prosperous Arab democracy that respected human rights, it could be an inspiration to the rest of the states in the region - and beyond.

The Arab world desperately needs a success story. Let us hope, for the sake of hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings in the Middle East, that Iraq provides that example.

In the short term, though, the Arab world is in for a shock. By lying about Saddam's atrocities and promising an Arab victory, those Arab media outlets are doing all Arabs a cruel disservice.

Imagine the impact on the Arab world when Saddam lies dead and the oppression-stunned people of Iraq begin to tell their stories of suffering under his regime. What will Arabs do when their own fellow Arabs tell them Saddam's glory was all a big lie?

My prediction: They will turn on the Iraqis and accuse them of being tools of the United States.

But be patient. The clich&eacute; is absolutely true: Nothing succeeds like success.

Baghdad was once the center of Arab culture, of science and the arts, and a beacon of human progress. It should be our sincere hope that Baghdad one day might play that role again.

Ralph Peters is a retired military officer and the author of "Fighting For The Future: Will America Triumph?"

Well said...
 

GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
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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.

The absurdities broadcast and printed throughout the Arab world are symptoms of a once-great culture's moral desolation, of the comprehensiveness of Arab failure. The Arabian Nights have long since turned into the Arabian nightmare.

The inability of the Arab world to compete with the West in any field of endeavor (even their efforts at terrorism ultimately fail) has been so devastating to the Arab psychology that they are desperate for someone to blame for what they and their grotesque leaders have done to their own culture.

Without the United States - and, of course, Israel - as excuses for Arab political squalor, Arabs might have to engage in self-examination, to ask themselves, "How have we failed so badly?"

They prefer to blame others, to sleepwalk through history, and to cheer when tyrants and terrorists "avenge" them.

On one level, Arabs know that Saddam Hussein is a monster. They know he has killed more Arabs than Israel ever could do. Saddam has been the worst thing to happen to Mesopotamia since the Mongols razed Baghdad. But Arabs are so jealous and discouraged that they need to inflate even Saddam into a hero. They have no one else.


It could not be said any better than that. The shortcomings of the "cradle of civilization" are glaring and obvious. However, I'd like to see Ralph Peters take on the Arab sympathizers here in the west. So many bleeding hearts in this very forum are rooting for Saddam and Iraq here it's almost inconceivable. What drives a person to support so backwards a culture? It can't all be white liberal guilt.
 

SuperTool

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Jan 25, 2000
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Without the United States - and, of course, Israel - as excuses for Arab political squalor, Arabs might have to engage in self-examination, to ask themselves, "How have we failed so badly?"
That is precisely why this Iraqi adventure in democracy will fail. It's initiated by the US, not from within Iraq. It's democracy accepted from the position of external weakness, not won for by internal strength. Democracy will be viewed as an external interventionist tool, not as an internal inaliable right. Democracy supporters will be viewed as foreign puppets, while anti-Democracy dictator wannabes will be viewed as patriots. Democracy will be lumped together with Britney Spears, MTV, Coke, McDonalds, as a unwelcome western influence. We have yet again saved an Arab state from having "to engage in self-examination, to ask themselves, 'How have we failed so badly?'"
 

etech

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Oct 9, 1999
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My prediction: They will turn on the Iraqis and accuse them of being tools of the United States.

I believe he got that one right. I don't have a link but was watching one of the news shows today. One of the rumors on the street they were talking about is that Saddam is in Washington. He sold out to the US and told his troops to surrender.

My take on that is the Arabs just can't believe that they were defeated so quickly and soundly and must make up a conspriacy theory to explain what happened.
 

LilBlinbBlahIce

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Dec 31, 2001
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Originally posted by: SuperTool
Without the United States - and, of course, Israel - as excuses for Arab political squalor, Arabs might have to engage in self-examination, to ask themselves, "How have we failed so badly?"
That is precisely why this Iraqi adventure in democracy will fail. It's initiated by the US, not from within Iraq. It's democracy accepted from the position of external weakness, not won for by internal strength. Democracy will be viewed as an external interventionist tool, not as an internal inaliable right. Democracy supporters will be viewed as foreign puppets, while anti-Democracy dictator wannabes will be viewed as patriots. Democracy will be lumped together with Britney Spears, MTV, Coke, McDonalds, as a unwelcome western influence. We have yet again saved an Arab state from having "to engage in self-examination, to ask themselves, 'How have we failed so badly?'"

I agree.
 

LilBlinbBlahIce

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Dec 31, 2001
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Originally posted by: Alistar7
* No Arab state hosts a responsible media.


What about Al-Jazeera?......;):)

What about Al-Jazeera? The reason why they are so threatning to the US is that they are showing the reality of war and that could be detrimental to public opinion. So they showed US POW's, what about the thousands of Iraqi POW's our media outlets show being tied up and marched to detention centers? What about the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? Oh wait, they were enemy combattants, by bad. Don't think the US is above using propaganda. Funny how Al-Jazeera's broadcasting stations in BOTH Afghanistan and Iraq got accidently bombed by us. Way to promote democracy and freedom of speach guys. Kudos.
 

zephyrprime

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Feb 18, 2001
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After Baghdad fell, I saw an interview with some Saudis or Jordanians (or whoever) and they were shocked that Baghdad had fallen because they had been told by Al-Jezeera that Iraq was winning. And I guess they must have believed the iraqi information minister. They then said "no one will believe al-jezeera again"

Imagine the impact on the Arab world when Saddam lies dead and the oppression-stunned people of Iraq begin to tell their stories of suffering under his regime. What will Arabs do when their own fellow Arabs tell them Saddam's glory was all a big lie?
Actually, I don't think the news will come as a surprise to the arabs. They already knew but some of them still supported Saddam.