As I've said before, the problem we have with Muslim countries springs from the masses, not the leadership. Rubin thinks this is because they are fed propaganda by the government. I think they've been fed propaganda from the Quran over the last 13 centuries, by their blood ancestors from one generation to the next. Muslims don't say "Sultan Akbar" or "Colonel Akbar" - they say "Allah Akbar". Any leader who deviates from their beliefs as regards the infidel risks assassination or violent revolt. Neo-con commentators like to say that Muslims hate us because their governments use the anti-Western propaganda to divert them from their problems. In reality, Mubarak has had 10 assassination attempts by Islamists mounted against him despite this so-called diversionary propaganda. A less hopeful interpretation would be that he parroted some of their anti-Western shibboleths to ward off even more assassination attempts - meaning that our enemy is the Egyptian people, not their leaders. Read the rest at the link...
Whoâd possibly have thought it? Answer: Anybody who understands the Middle East. You see, the Obama Administration rushed to get rid of the Mubarak government in the belief that this action would make Egyptians see that they are simply wonderful people. This would assure that Egypt and America remained good buddies forever.
Unfortunately, though, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Cairo and they werenât delighted to see her. In fact, those hip, Facebook-using youth that the Obama Administration kept extolling refused to see her at all! Hereâs what Google executive plus youth revolution leader Wael Ghonim tweeted:
âDear Hillary Clinton, thanks to the Internet, we can search for anyone's quotes within any period of time. Did you ever try this?â
Get it? We looked up all the nice things you said about President Husni Mubarak. We donât like you. And no matter what you do, since you canât change that history, we still wonât like you.
Of course, this gives the mass media a way out since it can claim that the problem is--once again!--past American sins rather than contemporary Arab radicalism and the popularity to be derived from demagoguery.
Anti-Americanism is going to explode now in Egypt, in all of its leftist, Islamist, and nationalist varieties. Candidates will compete to prove they aren't friendly to America. Egypt won't do anything the United States asks for. |