the Iraqi reaction to liberation

[Byron]

I noticed on my reuters/yahoo news stories today a
story showing a thousand Iraqis (both Muslim sects) 
denouncing the United States and demanding that the
U.S. go home. 

Not exactly dancing in the streets, is it.

Speaking of which...

  * * * 

That excellent piece of U.S journalism, showing the
Iraqis pulling down the statue of Saddam ... it was
quite effective. 

I know several intelligent people here who were quite
excited by it--just like the Berlin Wall, they said.
Any day now other Muslim countries might be falling as
in the heady days of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This moment in time was used by newspapers all over
the U.S. 

It appears that the Iraqis who were involved were some
we brought to the statue. The main agency that pulled
down the statue was U.S. Army equipment. And that
tanks held the square free of any interference while
it was done.   


--- Michael Eisenstadt <michaele@ando.pair.com> wrote:

> the collective Arab mind is given over to
> conspiratorial 
> thinking -- the psychologists call this magical
> thinking. 
> This way of thinking is not unknown in the West of
> course but 
> specific conspiracy theories do not usually totally 
> dominate the thinking of the educated Westener. 
> 
> collectively the Arabs have not yet learned to
> practice 
> non-conspiratorial thinking. this epistemological
> error is BUILT IN into the contemporary Arab
> mind-set.
> it is therefore inconceivable that they would accept
> the American invasion as being disinterested and 
> humanitarian (even assuming it is and not just about
> the oil).
> 
> surely this pecularity of the Arab mind-set is well 
> known in the State Department. but the Bushies and
> their neo-conservative theorists who are jerking
> Bush's chain are so fanatical that they chose in the
> privacy of their own thinking to ignore this well
> known fact. the State Department 
> 
> the Moslem street "knows" that the Mossad blew up
> the WTC first phoning the 4000 jews that worked
> there
> to call in sick to their offices
> 
> so can Iraqis surmount their usual way of always
> thinking in terms of conspiracies? no way. it is
> inconceivable that they would do so overnight. 
> maybe after a few hundred years.
> 
> the ancient Greeks colonized the choicest spots for 
> themselves all over the Mediterranean, from present 
> day Marseille, all over Sicily and lower Italy, all
> over 
> present day Turkey, going as far east as the Black
> Sea. 
> apparently after many generations, the natives of
> some 
> (i repeat "some") of these colonized were pretty
> much 
> hellenized speaking Greek rather than Phrygian say. 
> yes, cultures evolve and attain more rational
> mind-sets 
> but it takes a long time.
> 
> one would have to be INSANE to believe that
> Americans
> could invade an Arab country and contrive to make
> the locals adopt and implement a western-style 
> democratic polity over night. 
> 
> this was insane BEFORE the war and it is just as
> insane now. so we must brace ourselves to live
> with ongoing horrors that angry Arab Iraqis are
> going to be dreaming up against the occupying 
> forces. we have become the Israelis.
> 
> this may be so horrible that Americans will take
> their revenge on Bush in 2004 and he and his 
> crew will be toast. 
> 
> i dont want to read about horrors every morning 
> when i turn the computer on. but maybe we can
> console
> ourselves that each additional horror will be 
> another nail into the coffin of Bush's political
> career.
> 
> an unnamed Democratic senator was quoted as saying 
> (more or less) that the first Iraq war came to an
> end and
> Bush elder was afterwards defeated. But that this 
> time the administration will keep the nation at war 
> sine die. this doesnt HAVE to be the case. the 
> Dem senator was perhaps overly scaring himself
> to death about the hopelessness of the Dem candidate
> in 2004.
> 
> how the US will extricate itself from Iraq is at the
> 
> moment unknown. but of necessity it will happen so
> stay tuned!
> 
> excuse the non-linear order of the paragraphed
> propositions
> 
> Mike



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