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| Arabia |
| America-bashing has gone far enough |
| 2007-02-05 |
| By Khalaf Al Habtoor, Special to Gulf News You can't tune in to an Arabic channel nowadays without coming across analysts, former politicians and ex-generals moaning and groaning about America and the West. Their views almost always paint the Middle East as a terminal victim of neo-imperialism, corporate greed and raw aggression. In the world of the professional pundit we are always the innocent bystanders. The conflicts besetting this region are not of our making, they say. Everything is America's fault. Few ever come up with viable solutions. To be fair the US government deserves much of the anger directed towards it for its ill-thought out Mideast policy. A recent BBC poll that sought the opinions of 26,000 people in 25 countries indicates 49 per cent feel the US plays a mainly negative role in today's world. Surprisingly, attitudes in Germany, France and Indonesia were least favourable. But here's an interesting snippet. Some 57 per cent of Americans disapprove of the way their government handled the Iraq war. Okay. So we know that Washington has blundered over Iraq but this shouldn't mean that everything America and its allies propose is automatically perceived as negative. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #9 Khalaf Al Habtoor seems to know what he's doing businesswise, but the lunatics want just what he warns about. They desire to split their Arab masters from the west, and rein in the chaos. Maybe this is like the first muzzie to get it, kinda like the first lefty to get it, Lieberman. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-02-05 19:29 |
| #8 I think the US is better off being hated than loved. Can you imagine your cities swarming with such "friends"? |
| Posted by: SwissTex 2007-02-05 14:03 |
| #7 A recent BBC poll ... indicates 49 per cent feel the US plays a mainly negative role in today's world. And these would be the neary half the people who are below average? As for being loved, if you run down the roster of the UN, you will find that roughly half the member countries are run by dictators, pimps and kleptocrats. (Take the Human Rights Commission. Please!) I'm proud to be hated by the likes of them. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-02-05 11:09 |
| #6 The only thing stopping a Pax America policy is the unhealthy dogma that Americans should work at being liked. Who gives a F@#$? Those nukes have been drawing dust for too long. |
| Posted by: Sneaze 2007-02-05 10:06 |
| #5 What DarthVader said. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-02-05 09:27 |
| #4 I say we seize all the oil fields, wall them off to keep raiders away and sell it to the world at 10% profit. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-02-05 09:15 |
| #3 Pull the US Navy off the high seas for a couple of years and watch world trade sputter as piracy becomes a major international business once again shutting down major exports, like oil. You think major naval projection is in the budgets of most major, let alone minor, countries?. Guess who'd be hit hardest first? File under "What have the Romans ever done for us?" |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-02-05 08:50 |
| #2 there's nothing here that says "we want America," just that "we need America" -- a necessary evil, apparently. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2007-02-05 08:34 |
| #1 To be painfully frank, if America and the West were to dump us we would soon be saying 'Come back, all is forgiven'. If we no longer had the benefit of US satellites, for instance, our communications would be cut. If the West stopped supplying spare parts, our planes would be grounded; our hospital equipment left to rust. Moreover if we work towards harming the US economy, in the end we will only be harming ourselves since our own economies are inter-related and inter-dependent and especially since our currencies are pegged with the dollar. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-02-05 06:14 |