From: Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">

George Sherwood wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:58:28 +0100, Adam wrote:
>>> http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1605010,00.html
>>>
>>> "It's tempting to dismiss Abdullah's summit rhetoric as
playing to the
>>> gallery, but the Washington Post reports that Abdullah has also
>>> cancelled his attendance at a White House state dinner planned in his
>>> honor next month. It wasn't so long ago that Bush and Abdullah were
>>> practically love birds, holding hands as they walked past news cameras
>>> during Abdullah's last visit to the U.S. in 2005. For better or worse,
>>> they may increasingly be going their separate ways."
>>>
>>>
>> Nah it's a much deeper re-alignment going on. To make it into some
>> personal thing per se is to lose the significance.
>>
>> I think it could be the start (after many false dawns) of the Arabs
>> realizing the truth in the "stand together or hang
separately" dictum.
>
> Wouldn't they have to stop killing themselves first?  I don't see that
> happening no matter what the US does in Iraq.
>

Hum. Very few Arabs kill each other. When was the last Inter-arab national
fight? Some of the Lebanese groups vs Syria ?

When has Egypt threatened war against Saudi? Yemen? Even Sudan? Jordan?

Jordan has faced ultimatums wrt joining in the greater struggle (mostly to
Trans-jordan's cost).

>> From what I can gather the Arab nations (as individual nations) have
>> realized that the US doesn't really give a monkey's about them & that
>> shedloads of oil, 100'es of millions of Arabs & a huge area of land from
>> the Indian to the Atlantic count for nought in US public opinion & thus
>> policy.
>>
>> They have realized that they're getting a steadily more powerful Iran on
>> one side & IsraeAmerica on't'other & that it's about time
they at the
>> very least started an EU style process if not a NATO one.
>
> Never going to happen.  Way too many competing interests not even
> counting the Shia/Sunni thing.

Nah. They said exactly that wrt the EU. "The Europeans going to stop
killing each other & fighting? Way too many competing interests not
even counting the Catholic/Protestant thing."

stand together or hang separately is a fairly easy concept to grasp.

The EU has shown it can work. Very little border between Germany &
France (& Holland & Belgium etc.etc) these days.

> This isn't the first time you have
> proposed this and I still haven't seen anything to lead me in this
> direction.

Hum. OK.

> IMHO, the thing going on with Saudi now is trying to figure
> out what is going on in Iraq.

Hey it's not like asking any American would be much help wrt that.




> It is almost an Islamic civil war.

Tssk. Almost & yet not.

> In my
> mind we are much closer to that then we are to the pan-Islam that you are
> talking about.

I didn't say pan-Islam. Start with a few Arab states & then set some
entry criteria.


> If the US is not an illegal occupier in Iraq then you
> have nothing more then Muslims killing Muslims and no one is ready to
> admit this yet.
>

"If the US is not an illegal occupier in Iraq". An interesting
turn of phrase.

> then you
> have nothing more then Muslims killing Muslims and no one is ready to
> admit this yet.


Helloooo.... admitted? Predicted more like. Everyone knew there'd be death
squads & a "liberation movement".

I am curious why a country should not be allowed it's struggle between
security leading to authoritarianism (often involving massive killing)
& liberty leading to anarchy (often involving massive killing).


Who kills most muslims in the world today? No doubt other muslims given the
simple statistical fact that were a muslim to never come into contact with
a non-muslim then it would have to be a muslim wot killed him.

e.g the most oppression of muslims is done by the secret police (&
often general police & sometimes mil) of muslim states.


>> My guess is that they are deeply cheesed off at being told what to do
>> (normally in the negative) in their own region by the US (e.g. don't
>> send money to the PA, don't help Sunni in Iraq, don't interfere in
>> another Arab state (i.e. Lebanon) except under Western (US-Franco) terms
>> etc).
>
> They can already do whatever they want.  I don't see the money pouring
> into the PA.  You have claimed that it was going to happen many times and
> the bills are still going unpaid.
>

ROFLMAO. Only because the US & EU threatened any bank transferring
money into Palestine. & That includes UAE banks, Qatari banks, Omani
Banks, Kuwait banks & even Shock horror....Saudi banks....the great
dollar repositories.....

Not because the sovereign govs of various states wished to transfer their
money. It would appear that in order for one arab state to transfer another
entity state funds then that state needs US permission.

Or so it would appear.

In a region which favors the fluidity of capital that is an insult.

Adam

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5