Reuters: US ambassador to Libya dead

[Eddie Teach]

I also challenge you to find a people on this planet that hates any other country or people more (israel excepted) than the arabs hate the US.

Canadians hate us more. 

[Solmyr]

We are complicit in that oppression, and that's the way it's going to be seen.  Just like the "Palestinian Street" sees the Israelis suppressing the Palestinians with American-made Apaches, your average Arabian knucklehead in Riyahd isn't going to make the distinction "oh, it's just the US government making diplomatic and military deals with the Saudi government" when they're getting the business end of an American-made M-16 to the head. 
You seem to ascribe the same level of education and knowledge of current events that you have to the average Arab knucklehead.  That would be incorrect.

We can, however, mock western knuckleheads who say the same things even though they should know better.

[CountDeMoney]

We are complicit in that oppression, and that's the way it's going to be seen.  Just like the "Palestinian Street" sees the Israelis suppressing the Palestinians with American-made Apaches, your average Arabian knucklehead in Riyahd isn't going to make the distinction "oh, it's just the US government making diplomatic and military deals with the Saudi government" when they're getting the business end of an American-made M-16 to the head. 
You seem to ascribe the same level of education and knowledge of current events that you have to the average Arab knucklehead.  That would be incorrect.

We can, however, mock western knuckleheads who say the same things even though they should know better.

By all means, enjoy your Arab street education outreach program.  I'm sure they'll appreciate your efforts in explaining how the Hosni's oppression for decades with US equipment, or the Star of David painted on American military hardware, is "just business".

[dps]

the Star of David painted on American military hardware, is "just business".

Well, there's the real issue most Arabs have with the US, ain't it now. Take away US support for Isreal, and 99% of the reasons that many Arabs hate us goes away.  The US supported more unpleasant regimes in Latin America for far longer than in the Arab world (and propped those Latin American regimes up more directly, and in some cases actually created them--which we get accused of sometimes in the Middle East, but the only regime we can honestly be accused of helping create there is the Shah's in Iran, which of course isn't an Arab nation), yet, while certainly the US is unpopular with a lot of people in Latin America, there's not the outright hatred of us there that you find in many Arab states.

[Martinus]

So today 30-50 000 Libyans (in Benghazi alone) marched against extremism and for a unified government. They then stormed a jihadi camp, which they proceeded to burn down. All in retaliation for the killing of an American ambassador. I continue to find Libya extraordinarily surprising.

Only Arabs can burn a building down as a sign of protest against violence.

[Martinus]

They Egyptians should be thankful we told Hosni it was time to go.

This reminds me of an old Soviet era joke:

Q: How can you tell Comrade Stalin was a magnanimous, benevolent man when he gave candy to a starving girl?
A: He could have gutted her instead.

[Martinus]

The Saudis and the Gulf states should be thankful we prevented Saddam from steamrolling them. 

Well let's balance that against eighty years of them being crushed by the House of Saud and call it a wash in terms of thankfulness.

I don't accept the premise that anybody can be blamed for letting them do something like that to themselves. The constant nauseating arguments that assert that by making deals with and conducting diplomacy with nasty dictatorships somehow makes "us" culpible for every single act of that dictatorship. That is flipping responsibility on it's head. The House of Saud is oppressing Saudi Arabia, the US is not. The US is making diplomatic and military deals with the Saudi Government.

Arguments of this kind are always immoral since they are never honestly made about the country in question, they are always about the local politics of the person making the argument. The height of such immorality came when the US was accused of proping up saddam for years when he was evil and then when the US wanted to topple him the US was told that since it had "created" him it had no moral standing to remove him.

If every international issue revolves about how what the US did or should have done then you are deliberately obfuscating the issues on the ground.

They Egyptians should be thankful we told Hosni it was time to go.

Again that has to be balanced against forty years of oppression and it seems to rather be taking the credit for the Egyptian revolution. So I don't think this example stands up either.

Same as above. The Egyptians themselves created the Free Officer Regime, not the US. Apparently the US is to blame for every action by every dictatorship it isn't actively trying to overthrow while at the same time it is imperialistic when it tries to overthrow said dictatorships.

The rest are Muslims but not Arabs: Bosnia we saved from the Serbs, Somalia we tried to save from anarchy, Pakistan and Indonesia we helped save from Mother Nature.

You talked about Arab gratitude. My point is that, with the exception of Libya, I can't think of a single Arab nation who should feel grateful towards the US. That area's like your Warsaw Pact.

As an aside I think natural disaster aid's a bit weak too. By that measure the world should feel very grateful to the EU.

Saving Egypt in 1956 sort of stands out as the kind of actual principled altruistic deed that should be remembered. Threatening to screw over your most important ally in the world to help Egypt nationalize the Suez Canal?

I don't think anyone here is advancing an argument that the US is somehow particularly evil for pursuing its interests in the region.

I think people are disputing the preposterous claim by Yi that the actions of the US are something Arabs should be grateful for.

[Martinus]

The Palestinians are obsessing about something that happened even longer ago than that

Are you for fucking real? Are you saying that if a period of perceived oppression and injustice starts 70 years ago and continues to this day, it should be viewed as something that happened 70 years ago and has no modern relevance? 

[CountDeMoney]

Well, there's the real issue most Arabs have with the US, ain't it now. Take away US support for Isreal, and 99% of the reasons that many Arabs hate us goes away.  The US supported more unpleasant regimes in Latin America for far longer than in the Arab world (and propped those Latin American regimes up more directly, and in some cases actually created them--which we get accused of sometimes in the Middle East, but the only regime we can honestly be accused of helping create there is the Shah's in Iran, which of course isn't an Arab nation), yet, while certainly the US is unpopular with a lot of people in Latin America, there's not the outright hatred of us there that you find in many Arab states.

I'd say, maybe 66% would go away.   

Comparing US foreign policy in South America versus the Muddled East is United Fruit apples and oranges, though.  For a variety of reasons, namely a history of spells of positive engagement.  There's a reason most Latin American capitals have a boulevard named for Roosevelt.

And they're predominantly members of a real religion, not moon worshippers.  Nor have their populaces suffered from the sheer ignorance that your average Muddled Easterner suffers under.

[CountDeMoney]

The Palestinians are obsessing about something that happened even longer ago than that

Are you for fucking real? Are you saying that if a period of perceived oppression and injustice starts 70 years ago and continues to this day, it should be viewed as something that happened 70 years ago and has no modern relevance? 

Fuck 70 years ago;  Muslim hang-ups go back to the Abrahamic covenant.

[Neil]

Catholicism is somewhere in between the barbaric nature of Islam and proper, advanced religions like Protestantism.  But it's closer to civilization than not.

[Viking]

the Star of David painted on American military hardware, is "just business".

Well, there's the real issue most Arabs have with the US, ain't it now. Take away US support for Isreal, and 99% of the reasons that many Arabs hate us goes away.  The US supported more unpleasant regimes in Latin America for far longer than in the Arab world (and propped those Latin American regimes up more directly, and in some cases actually created them--which we get accused of sometimes in the Middle East, but the only regime we can honestly be accused of helping create there is the Shah's in Iran, which of course isn't an Arab nation), yet, while certainly the US is unpopular with a lot of people in Latin America, there's not the outright hatred of us there that you find in many Arab states.

This is not the case. The problem is not a case of protesting US support for Arab enemies.

The fundamental problem is that the regular arab when he looks around the world he sees that his country and the arab world is poorer, less developed and weaker than the countries he likes to consider his equal. Arab societies have failed to produce successful states and empires. A small european style country like Israel can not only stand up to equal sized arab states, but completely dominate arab states with 10 times its own population. To the arab mind (or any other mind really) requires an explanation. They do not understand what free markets, religious freedom and politcial freedom are, what consequences they have and what they mean for society, politics, economy and the military. There are arabs and turks (kemalists) who understand this but they are few and usually ignored. It is much easier for the regular arab to think that "somebody did this to us". The regular arab in the street will harken back to the chaliphate and think that the arab world can dominate and should and naturally is easily enamoured by the idea of a "dolchstoss" that the arab world was somehow cheated out of it's natural place as the world superpower (as promised by god and the koran). These people will look for conspiracies, traitors and dastarly underhanded and unfair dealings by the arab world's rivals and enemies. This is why the 3 billion us support to israel in an economy of 250 billion somehow, supposedly takes a weak minnow and makes it a superpower. Another faction in the arab world will take the same approach as the jews of the old testament did when confronting conquest and occupation (after god supposedly gave them the land), they claimed that this was punishment for not following the law. This is bin Laden's explanation, in OBL's mind the whole thing started in 1924 (as if the muslim world was powerful in 1924) when Ataturk abolished the Caliphate. Abandoning true islam(tm) is the cause for the arab world's failure.

So the don't hate the US for what it does, but rather for what it is, the world's sole superpower. The Salafists who think that the arab world has stopped following the koran belive that the good muslim must fight the infidel who does not surrender.

They hate the US and Israel because they expose the weakness and patheticness of the arab world.

[CountDeMoney]

Catholicism is somewhere in between the barbaric nature of Islam and proper, advanced religions like Protestantism.  But it's closer to civilization than not.

At least it believes in education, whereas neither Islam or Protestantism do not.

[Viking]

The Palestinians are obsessing about something that happened even longer ago than that

Are you for fucking real? Are you saying that if a period of perceived oppression and injustice starts 70 years ago and continues to this day, it should be viewed as something that happened 70 years ago and has no modern relevance? 

Fuck 70 years ago;  Muslim hang-ups go back to the Abrahamic covenant.

Mama Hagar, why does Father Abraham not love me? Why does he prefer Sarah and Isak to us?

[Viking]

The Palestinians are obsessing about something that happened even longer ago than that

Are you for fucking real? Are you saying that if a period of perceived oppression and injustice starts 70 years ago and continues to this day, it should be viewed as something that happened 70 years ago and has no modern relevance? 

No. Please re-read what I said. Sheilbh says Suez happened too long ago to matter, I said, it should matter, see all these people obsessing about things that happened longer ago than suez. I am for fucking real, you, however, can't or won't read.