Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Brother? What Brother?

 
Iraq the Model made a good point in his July 17 post about the Arab double standard used to parse events in Iraq. He was speaking of the previous day’s “barbaric attacks” which killed a hundred Iraqis.

Iraqthemodel.blogspotThe image is astounding for its ability to show ordinary life against the backdrop of blazing annihilation. Notice that one person stands and watches but another walks down the street as though nothing is going on behind him. “Not my affair…”

What angers Iraq the Model is the double standard the Arab world applies to Iraq’s suffering:
     The government here announced Wednesday a national mourning day in solidarity with the families of the victims of the latest two massacres in Iraq.
But we hear nothing from our Arab “brothers” not even a word of consolation, rejection, condemnation; no nothing.
Even Annan condemned the attacks with a few words while the secretary of the Arab League, Amr Mousa didn’t utter a word.
When Mohammed Al-Durra was killed by presumably Israeli fire, the Arab world got literally crazy and countless speeches, articles and protests were made in response to it but when Iraqi children are massacred by an Arab, Muslim jihadist then it’s just another sad consequence of the American invasion!
He’s right about the double standard. We have it here, too. One standard for the poor insurgents, another one entirely for the nazified American military.

Iraq the Model makes a telling point against those who claim that this wouldn’t be happening were it not for the presence of the Americans:
     They hate to admit the fact that terrorism existed in Iraq long before America came to Iraq; terrorism and the regime were one hand committing a genocide against the people of Iraq, only it was broader and crueler than today’s war but the difference is that no one could hear of that genocide; concrete walls and basements that housed countless torture chambers and the bodies were buried in secrecy and under the cover of the night.
No suicide bombers were needed because the regime was able to take anyone whenever and wherever they liked to torture and kill silently and without making any noise; no media was there to cover beheadings or to tape blowing up people or catch them being fed to the wild dogs.
And that’s really the point, isn’t it? Since it was all nice and quiet from where we sat, why bother? The supreme moral relativism has become “My brother’s keeper? It depends on the meaning of ‘brother’ doesn’t it? I mean everyone may define ‘brother’ as he sees fit. Those people have a right to decide for themselves. Not my problem.”

And so the Iraqis are to be left to fend for themselves? Here’s his take on that particular piece of politcally correct detritus regarding “brothers:”
     But when the coalition came and freed Iraq from the head of terror and organized murder, the liberation was considered outrageous.
And then more terrorists started coming to Iraq announcing shamelessly that they want to avenge their master and help their “brothers” after they lost a key supporter who provided them with much of what they needed to spread their evil in the world.
Wake up people; they terrorists are declaring their intentions without fear or shame, so why do you try to ignore what they are not ashamed of declaring?
Why indeed? And why do we not make an equally loud declaration? Actually some of us have; it’s called The Bush Doctrine.

5 comments:

Dymphna said...

Evidently I wasn't clear: that was sarcasm. I was talking about the politcally correct view here: the one that refuses to call terrorists anything but insurgents and compares our soldiers in Gitmo to Nazis. I presumed the sarcasm and the reference would be obvious.

I'm fond of quoting this line from Peter Drucker and it is certainly apropos now: "communication is the act of the recipient." Obviously I failed to communicate.

Of course our military are not Nazis. It's preposterous, which is why I quoted it. Should have put scare quotes around "nazified."

goesh said...

- on the other hand, many Iraqis must have had doubts when American forces occupied the palaces of saddam hussein, did not shoot looters andwe medevac wounded insurgents for expensive, high tech treatment. I would wonder too. I would ask if I were an Iraqi, "why is the man trying to kill Americans given such good treatment yet our hospitals are lacking?" I might well be skeptical of democracy too if this is what it represents, and feel more comfortable with tribal and clan leaders and imams running the show.

goesh said...

- on the other hand, many Iraqis must have had doubts when American forces occupied the palaces of saddam hussein, did not shoot looters andwe medevac wounded insurgents for expensive, high tech treatment. I would wonder too. I would ask if I were an Iraqi, "why is the man trying to kill Americans given such good treatment yet our hospitals are lacking?" I might well be skeptical of democracy too if this is what it represents, and feel more comfortable with tribal and clan leaders and imams running the show.

Dymphna said...

Rightaroundhere: look at Drucker's aphorism. Communication *is* the act of the recipient and one can therefore infer that the failure to communicate does not fall on the one who hears but the one who speaks. Grok?

Goesh--

You've been MSM'ed my child. You should see what we've done for Iraqi hospitals. And the thousands of pounds of medical books that have been delivered to Iraqi medical schools when we found out they were using photocopied out-dated books because they couldn't get any.

I need to post some Chrenkoff type stuff just so we can brag. Man we are doing sooo much good over there but the gatekeepers have the lid screwed down so tight none of it leaks out.

OTOH, I agree that the Arab mindset does not exactly get the compassionate approach so we have a rather large macho culture gap. Like maybe a chasm...

goesh said...

I'm far from being a MSM poster child, but having had my war I know all is never quite as rosy as the one side claims nor nearly as bad as the other side wants it to be. Hopefully lessons learned from Iraq will be applied when needed. Lots of things have been built and situations turned around, no doubt, but the fact that the jihadis are turning from mostly attacking American soliders to bombing civilians tells us something. Hearts and minds, to use a phrase from my war, are not won over with construction and services alone. At this stage, clan and tribal leaders and imams are easier to trust than Americans and a still-forming government. That as I see it is pretty much a simple fact, devoid of political and moral affiliation.