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| Arabia |
| Top 10 Current Arab Conspiracy Theories |
| 2004-05-07 |
| from NRO A Vast Conspiracy Nothing funny about this top-ten list. By Steven Stalinsky Abd Al-Munim Said, head of the Al-Ahram Research Center in Egypt, once said: "We thought that by the end of the 20th century, the Arab mind would be open enough not to explain everything with a ’conspiracy theory’...the biggest problem with conspiracy theories is that they keep us not only from the truth but also from confronting our faults and problems...This way of thinking relates any given problem to external elements, and thus does not [lead] to a rational policy to confront the problem." Since 9/11/01, conspiracy theories against the U.S., the Jews, and the Zionists have been rampant in the Arab world. These notions are spread not only by marginal personalities and media outlets, but, more important, by prominent members of mainstream governments and media. Some of last year’s most far-fetched conspiracy theories in the Arab world include: U.S. soldiers cannibalized Iraqi civilians; the U.S. was responsible for the car bomb that killed Iraqi Shia leader Muhammad Bakir Al-Hakim; the Jews were behind the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia; the U.S. was behind the SARS virus; and the Iraq war was launched to coincide with the Jewish holiday Purim. The following highlight the top ten Arab conspiracy theories in recent months: 10. Pakistani Jamaat ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was quoted in the Islamic Republic News Agency on November 13, 2003, stating that al Qaeda was not responsible for the Riyadh bombing that month. Rather, "It is a Jewish and American conspiracy against the mujahadeen and al Qaeda." Amerikans .5, Jooos .5 9. According to an editorial in the November 20 Yemen Times, the Istanbul bombings during Ramadan this past November could not have been committed by Muslims, as "the international Zionist establishment was keen on instigating this crime. This is strongly supported by the fact that no Muslim in his right mind could ever condone such crimes." Amerkans .5, Jooos 1.5 8. The Islamic Republic News Agency reported on February 28 that the U.S. captured Osama bin Laden in a tribal region of Pakistan. It claimed that Donald Rumsfeld’s recent trip to Pakistan was related to the capture. The report said that the U.S. will announce the capture shortly before the November presidential elections. Amerikans 1.5, Jooos 1.5 7. Professor Galal Amin, a professor at the American University of Cairo, writing in the April 1 edition of Egypt’s Al-Ahram Weekly, explained: "There is still doubt that the September [11] attacks were the outcome of Arab and Islamic terror.... Many writers... suspect that the attacks were carried out by Americans." Amerikans 2.5, Jooos 1.5 6. Writing in Kuwait’s Al-Watan on March 14, columnist Adnan Zayid Al-Kazimi identified the real culprit in the Madrid bombings: "I claim with certainty that the ones who attributed all evil to the Arabs and the Muslims are the Zionists, those who are closest to carry out such an operation like the other operations [that they carried out]." Amerikans 2.5, Jooos 2.5 5. Said Al-Subki, columnist for the Saudi daily Al-Watan, also blamed the Madrid bombings on the Jews in its March 19 edition. He criticized Arab intelligence services for being "incapable of discovering the hidden Zionist fingers planning many terror operations in order to entangle the Arabs and Muslims." Amerikans 2.5, Joos 3.5 4. Deputy editor of the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya wrote an article on March 18 that accused the Jews of perpetrating every terrorist attack throughout the world. Regarding the Madrid bombings that took place March 11, Abd Al-Wahhab Adas claimed, in reference to the explosives and cassettes of the Koran found at the site, "It is obvious that the Jews are the ones who placed these things, in order to prove to the entire world that the Arabs and Muslims are behind the bombings." Adas added about the Jews: "It is they who are behind the events of September 11." Amerikans 2.5, Jooos 4.5 3. In an interview with Al-Arabiyya TV, Lebanese Druze leader and parliamentarian Walid Jumblatt stated on March 21 that, as part of a "born-again Christian" scheme that included 9/11, the CIA controls Osama bin Laden. Amerikans 3.5, Jooos 4.5 2. According to the Iranian Mehr News Agency, Hossein Sheikholeslam, the former Iranian ambassador to Syria, stated that the series of bombings that hit Damascus in the last week of April were "a bid to force Iraq’s neighbors to submit to their Iraq policy, the U.S. and the Zionist regimes orchestrated such terrorist attacks." He noted, "This is not the first time that the U.S. and Israel have employed al Qaeda elements to help them reinforce their terrorist objectives." Amerikans 4, Jooos 5 And, the No 1 Stupid Arab Conspiracy Theory [insert drum roll here] 1. After the bombing in Yunbu, Saudi Arabia, on May 1, Crown Prince Abdullah stated: "Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom. I can say that I am 95 percent sure of that." Amerkans 4, Jooos 6 |
| Posted by:.com |
| #26 argh! meant "Hafiz..." |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-05-07 5:31:55 PM |
| #25 "Holy Cow! Hafix Saeed did NOT just throw a bomb into the stands, and the bomb did NOT explode, killing dozens of spectators and baby ducks! It's all an American plot!" |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-05-07 5:26:40 PM |
| #24 Okay. It's a classic, as much for the bezbol lineup as for the content... Now I have this vision of Baghdad Bob hollering "Holy cow!" as Hafiz Saeed belts a sputtering black bomb into the stands... |
| Posted by: Fred 2004-05-07 4:51:02 PM |
| #23 "This goes in the Classics." I agree. Fred, please file this in there. |
| Posted by: Korora 2004-05-07 4:01:47 PM |
| #22 14 & 15 LOL! |
| Posted by: Korora 2004-05-07 2:46:58 PM |
| #21 Hey Muck4Doo -- that site looks like it has a pretty good flan recipe! Gracias!! ;) |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2004-05-07 2:35:06 PM |
| #20 sound like they been talking to my brother in law. |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2004-05-07 1:49:10 PM |
| #19 Hey, if the Americans had been involved in any of this, they would have taken pictures and emailed them to all their buddies in the States! |
| Posted by: John Simmins 2004-05-07 1:26:26 PM |
| #18 It looks like we're still safe. They still don't know about the Stargate, the dial-home device, the reverse-engineered death gliders, or the Prometheus. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-05-07 1:20:58 PM |
| #17 Islam is now entering its dark ages. A quibble - Islam entered its dark ages centuries ago. Some of the bloody-mindedness and instability we're seeing could be response of reactionary (Salafist) elements to the start of their emergence from them. The challenge is to make sure the West supplies as few of the inevitable casualties of the process as possible. |
| Posted by: VAMark 2004-05-07 1:19:39 PM |
| #16 What a baseball team Yep, the first to have a perfect season - 0-164. You can't teach someone the truth when they don't have a mind open enough to receive it. If their "religion" is perfect the way it was in the 7th century, then it cannot change - change would imdicate that there is something wrong with their religion. The Jewish faith is designed to grow and adapt as human culture grows and adapts. Islam is static. Christianity, which is a subset of Judiasm, went through its period of rigidity, known as the "dark ages". Islam is now entering its dark ages. At least during the Christian dark ages, the nutcases couldn't wipe out whole cities in a flash. As the old Chinese curse says, we live in interesting times. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-05-07 1:07:24 PM |
| #15 Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, announcer. |
| Posted by: Steve from Relto 2004-05-07 11:58:08 AM |
| #14 What a baseball team - The all-black-helicopter-all-stars Starting Lineup : Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Pakistan, SS Lead Editorialist, Yemen Times, Yemen, 2B Lead Reporter, Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran, CF Professor Galal Amin, Egypt, RF Adnan Zayid Al-Kazimi, Kuwait, LF Said Al-Subki, Saudi Arabia, 3B Abd Al-Wahhab Adas, Egypt, 1B Walid Jumblatt, Lebanon (West Syria), C Hossein Sheikholeslam, Iran, DH Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi Arabia, P, Team captain |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-07 11:54:42 AM |
| #13 incapable of discovering the hidden Zionist fingers . . .piloting all those black helicopters over the West Bank and Gaza. |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-07 11:45:45 AM |
| #12 This goes in the Classics. |
| Posted by: Steve from Relto 2004-05-07 11:30:23 AM |
| #11 You put 3 arabs in a russian designed tank in the summer and you tell me there's no death ray. It's inside the turrent. |
| Posted by: abu t62 2004-05-07 11:05:36 AM |
| #10 I read in Jim Dunnigan's book Dirty Little Secrets that the Soviet tanks used by Arab countries were not air-conditioned. As a result their tank crews were overcome with heat exhaustion in (summer) wars against Israel. This led to Arab theories about Zionist rays zapping the Arab soldiers! In the Arab mind effect has not met cause. |
| Posted by: Spot 2004-05-07 9:23:24 AM |
| #9 Try to figure out the difference between this and what "Gentle" was peddling here last week. And Antisemite called the board "prejudiced." Gosh how I miss those days. |
| Posted by: BMN 2004-05-07 8:45:50 AM |
| #8 I don't know about you guys, but I sure wouldn't have wanted to be named "Sheik-hole-slam" in high school. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-05-07 8:43:40 AM |
| #7 Delusional thinking such as conspiracy theorizing and death cultism lead to extinction. They are anti-survival traits indicating that evolution has bypassed this species. |
| Posted by: virginian 2004-05-07 7:15:17 AM |
| #6 Okay, it's pretty easy to laugh at this stuff - it's self-satirizing. OTOH, we have a real problem here. We can say it's their problem, but clearly it has spilled over to affect us & it's going to take a generation to change this. Take: a pride/shame culture Add: the humiliation of being outside the Core (economic / political / social / intellectual influence) Also add: the ability to leverage Western technology for destruction Equals: a long 15-20 yrs during which we need to use all our assets - military, but also economic, diplomatic and intellectual - both to fight the terror and also to insist that these societies join the modern world. I don't care how they do it, so long as they do it peacefully and more or less democratically. Arabs and other Muslims aren't, on average, any stupider than Americans. They are, however, stuck in ignorance (for many) and cognitive dissonance (pretty much all of them, so far as I can tell). Arab culture once was cosmopolitan, diverse and tolerant -- apart from the bit about conquering all unbelievers etc etc. Seriously, it's worth remembering that they weren't always cut off from the world, from intellectual exploration etc. We need to get them back as productive members of the world. In the meanwhile, I'll keep on educating future Army officers and doing research on techie stuff that helps homeland defense ..... |
| Posted by: rkb 2004-05-07 6:09:42 AM |
| #5 "Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom. I can say that I am 95 percent sure of that." .. otherwise its those bastard Somoans. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-07 4:28:13 AM |
| #4 Final scorecard: The muslims are big fat zeroes. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-05-07 4:14:35 AM |
| #3 Paul - |
| Posted by: .com 2004-05-07 4:06:07 AM |
| #2 Pakistani Jamaatud-Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was quoted Pakistanis aren't Arabs The Islamic Republic News Agency reported Iranians aren't Arabs either |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-05-07 3:53:36 AM |
| #1 Hilarious commentary. *golf clap* |
| Posted by: someone 2004-05-07 3:41:40 AM |