Arab Reactions to the fall of Baghdad...

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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There are a couple of quote here I particularly liked:

Arabs Shocked, Relieved at Baghdad’s Fall
1 hour, 14 minutes ago

By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The fall of Baghdad provoked shock and disbelief Wednesday among Arabs, who expressed hope that other oppressive regimes would crumble but also disappointment that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) did not put up a better fight against America.

“Why did he fall that way? Why so fast?” said Yemeni homemaker Umm Ahmed, tears streaming down her face. “He’s a coward. Now I feel sorry for his people.”

Arabs clustered at TV sets in shop windows, coffee shops, kitchens and offices to watch the astounding pictures of U.S. troops overwhelming an Arab capital for the first time ever.

Feeling betrayed and misled, some turned off their sets in disgust when jubilant crowds in Baghdad celebrated the arrival of U.S. troops.

“We discovered that all what the (Iraqi) information minister was saying was all lies,” said Ali Hassan, a government employee in Cairo, Egypt. “Now no one believes Al-Jazeera anymore.”

In a live report from Baghdad, correspondent Shaker Hamed of Abu Dhabi Television said:“We are all in shock. How did things come to such an end? How did U.S. tanks enter the center of the city? Where is the resistance? This collapse is puzzling. Was it the result of the collapse of communications between the commanders? Between the political leadership? How come Baghdad falls so easily.”

Mohammed al-Shahhal, a 49-year-old teacher in Tripoli, Lebanon, said the scenes reminded him of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“Those who applauded the collapse of Lenin’s statue for some Pepsi and hamburgers felt the hunger later on and regretted what they did,” al-Shahhal said.

However, Tannous Basil, a 47-year-old cardiologist in Sidon, Lebanon, said Saddam’s regime was a “dictatorship and had to go.”

“I don’t like the idea of having the Americans here, but we asked for it,” he said. “Why don’t we see the Americans going to Finland, for example? They come here because our area is filled with dictatorships like Saddam’s.”

Tarek al-Absi, a Yemeni university professor, was hopeful Saddam’s end presaged more democracy in the region.

“This is a message for the Arab regimes, and could be the beginning of transformation in the Arab region,” al-Absi said. “Without the honest help of the Western nations, the reforms will not take place in these countries.”

The overwhelming emotions for many Arabs were disbelief or disillusionment after weeks of hearing Saddam’s government pledge a “great victory” or fight to the death against “infidel invaders.”

“We Arabs are clever only at talking,” Haitham Baghdadi, 45, said bitterly in Damascus, Syria. “Where are the Iraqi weapons? Where are the Iraqi soldiers?”

Many resorted to conspiracy theories to explain the rapid collapse.

“There must have been treason,” said Ahmed Salem Batmira, an Omani political analyst.

“It seems there was some deal. Saddam has put himself ahead of his people,” said Yemeni government employee Saad Salem el-Faqih, 50.

Three men having tea and smoking in a coffee shop in Riyadh were unsettled as they watched the TV — even though they said they were against Saddam and felt sorry for the long-suffering Iraqis.

“I can’t say that I’m happy about what’s going on because these are non-Muslim forces that have gone in and I hope they will not stay,” said Mohammed al-Sakkaf, a 58-year-old businessman.

Many said they were disturbed by images of U.S. troops lounging in Saddam’s palaces or draping the U.S. flag around the head of a Saddam statue.

“Liberation is nobler than that,” said Walid Abdul-Rahman, one of the three Saudis. “They should not be so provocative.”

In Jordan, hotel receptionist Wissam Fakhoury, 28, said he was disappointed in the Baghdad crowds.

“I spit on them,” he said. “Do those crowds who are saluting the Americans believe that the United States will let them live better?” Fakhoury said. Americans “will loot their oil and control their resources, leaving them nothing.”

Bahraini physician Hassan Fakhro, 62, said he was saddened.

“Whatever I’m seeing is very painful because although Saddam Hussein was a dictator, he represented some kind of Arab national resistance to the foreign invaders — the Americans and the British,” Fakhro said.

After an anti-war march in Khartoum, Sudan, lawyer Ali Al-Sayed said U.S. troops should not misinterpret the relief as an invitation to stay.

“Those people under oppression will not have any national feeling, so they will be happy to see someone removing a dictator and liberating them,” al-Sayed said. “But the moment they feel free and liberated, they will not tolerate a foreign presence.”

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites), an uncomfortable U.S. ally in the war, said the quickest way to achieve stability now would be for U.S. troops to withdraw. “Iraqis must take control over of their country as fast as possible,” Mubarak told Egypt’s official news agency, MENA.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud, looking upset at a news conference, called for a quick end to Iraq (news - web sites)'s “occupation.” In a rare departure from diplomacy, Saud responded to a question about Arab anger toward the United States with: “I don’t want to talk about anger if you don’t mind today.”

Edited - with link: Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More

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Ahhh. It is so sad it takes Americans to remind Muslims of the truth in their own lands. By now one would think we would know better, but I guess I not. :(

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Sums up how many feel here, they would rather have Iraqis suffer under Saddam than be liberated by coalition forces , what a shame.
…

Arab street finds capitulation hard to swallow

The Arab world was in shock and denial on Thursday after Baghdad fell almost without a fight, bringing to an end President Saddam Hussein’s 24-year rule.

Many felt let down by demise of a figure who had represented a rare source of Arab defiance of American power; others were more shocked by his own people’s failure to defend or mourn him, and saw it as a warning to other unelected Arab rulers.

“I am very sad. All of Egypt is sad. My wife was weeping this morning,” said Adel Farouq, a 45-year-old Egyptian taxi driver.

Semari Ahmed, a Tunis history teacher, said: “I hear people asking angrily why Saddam’s forces ‘crumbled like a biscuit under US troops’. That outcome is logical. Saddam’s artificial support was a result of a culture of hypocrisy, not conviction.”

From the Atlantic to the Arabian Gulf, television images of crowds rejoicing at cheering US Marines toppling a Saddam statue in central Baghdad, broadcast repeatedly since Wednesday afternoon, caused consternation and a sense of shame.

The fact that there was little resistance to the US troops that entered Baghdad from all directions sparked Arab speculation that senior leaders might have struck a deal with the Americans.

“I still cannot believe that the Americans entered Baghdad this easily. If a deal was struck with Saddam, then that proves that he staked his people and the hopes of all Arabs in order to survive,” said Yahya Kahla, a teacher in Sanaa, capital of Yemen.

“He is one of the traitors we have known throughout history and he will not be the last.”

Palestinians watching the Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi satellite stations were stunned at seeing the giant Saddam statue tumble in a Baghdad square after the rapid collapse of Iraq’s military.

“This is a tragedy and a bloody comedy. We cannot believe what we see. What happened? It seems that the Iraqis have given up Baghdad without a fight. Where is the Iraqi army? Have they evaporated?” said Walid Salem, a Ramallah shopkeeper.

Ali Jaddah, an engineer, said: “It’s a day of shame. On this day Arabs have become slaves. The only man who dared to say ‘no’ to the Americans’ face has vanished today. What is left is a bunch of bowing and scraping Arab leaders.”

Many Arabs equate the Palestinians’ plight under Israeli occupation with the Iraqis’ new situation under US and British military invasion. Anti-war banners have often featured joined Iraqi and Palestinian flags.

But some people said Saddam’s fall should be a warning to other Arab leaders.

“What happened in Baghdad must be taken into consideration by Arab rulers because the people are the ones who defend a country, and if they are tortured and their honour is violated then they will be the first to abandon it,” said Hussein Taher, a 37-year-old private sector employee in Saudi Arabia.

Egyptian political commentator Salama Ahmed Salama told Reuters: “The gap between Arab governments and the people represents a source of anxiety for different Arab regimes. But whether they’ll learn the lesson or not, I don’t know.”

Lesson to others?

The Iraqi example showed that the backing of a party, clique or tribe was not enough to sustain a legitimate government.

“The scene of the statue being brought down showed how Iraqis were dissatisfied with (Saddam’s) regime. Maybe this is going to be a lesson and an example to other Arab leaders who consider themselves as gods,” said Ali Hassan, a shopper in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Some Arab broadcasters made a point of telling viewers Saddam’s demise was the end of a unique tyranny, not a precedent for other states ruled by unelected monarchs or autocrats.

“The Iraqi situation is exceptional, we can’t compare it with Iran or Egypt…or a country like Saudi Arabia. This is…a regime outside history,” Saudi commentator Jamal Khashoggi said.

While Kuwaitis – occupied by Iraq in 1990 – shared in the celebration, the toppling of Saddam’s monument looked different in many Arab countries to the way it was seen in the West.

To many, it was an act of imperial conquest by an outside power rather than an act of liberation.

When an American marine placed a U.S. flag over the statue’s face, a commentator on Al Jazeera, the most widely watched Arab satellite TV station, remarked: “Everything that happens from now on will have an American smell.”

Pro-western Morocco’s state TV channel 2M gave wide play in to images of looting, cheerful Iraqis dancing on the destroyed statue of Saddam and refugees fleeing the capital.

But many other Arab media focused on the civilian casualties thronging overwhelmed Iraqi hospitals, as well as journalists killed by US tank and missile fire in Baghdad.

On the streets of Amman one question was on everyone’s lips: “How could it have happened?” How could Baghdad fall with the bat of an eyelid into US hands?

“The Jordanian people are astounded by the images of US tanks rolling into Baghdad and statues of Saddam Hussein being brought down, because they believed that the Iraqi capital would resist a long time,” a political analyst told AFP.

Engineer Samir Ezzat, 37, bitterly watched television broadcasts from Iraq showing scenes of jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets of Baghdad.

“I am sad because the liberation of the Iraqi people was done at the hands of the Americans who were only motivated by their own interests and not the welfare of the Iraqi people,” Ezzat said.

Businessman Ziad Shannak found the developments in Baghdad hard to swallow.

“Once more the Arabs have been humiliated and deceived like the crushing defeat we faced during the 1967 war with Israel, despite the thunderous promises of victory Nasser made,” he said of the former Egyptian leader. — Compiled from agency reports

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its a blow to the Arabs ego, so much for the pan-arab concept, back to the sheesha bar

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I befuddles me as to what they were thinking. Were they believing the reports from the Iraqi information ministry?

I like this article…particularly the joke bit..

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/opinion/10FAND.html

The Iraq the Arab World Saw All Along
By MAMOUN FANDY

ASHINGTON — “It was an edifice conjured up in the mind and now collapsed.” That was the opening line of a song by Um Kalthoum, the diva of Arab music. She sang the song after the defeat of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in 1967.

The image makes as much sense in the Arab world today as it did 36 years ago. Today television images show statues and posters of Saddam Hussein being destroyed. Journalists inform us that soldiers have given up and that the structure of power has crumbled without a serious fight.

Despite the images of war and the antiwar demonstrations that the Arab world saw on television, most Arabs’ hearts were not in this fight. They were dismayed that Saddam Hussein had sent Iraq’s army on a suicide mission against a superior army simply to save face. No one was shedding tears as Mr. Hussein’s statues came down. They knew about the nightmare suffered by Iraqis during his 32 long years of oppressive rule. The orgies of violence of Uday and Qusay, Saddam Hussein’s two sons, have been widely reported.

Comparisons are being made between the Iraqi minister of information, Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, and Ahmed Said, a radio broadcaster whose name was synonymous with Nasser’s regime. In 1967 it was Mr. Said, speaking on Sawt Al-Arab radio, the state-run channel that broadcast to the Arab world, who told the Arabs that their guns were bringing down Israeli planes from the sky like flies. We heard echoes of those wishful fictions when Mr. Sahhaf insisted that the Americans were nowhere near Baghdad, that their arrival was all a lie on the part of the American news media. “The images are made in Hollywood,” he claimed in a press conference.

Of course, in 1967, Israel defeated Nasser’s army and came to occupy lands of three Arab states. Today, Mr. Sahhaf’s statements have also been exposed as fantasy. In Riyadh and Cairo there is a joke making the rounds. “When al-Sahhaf died they sent him 63 angels,” it goes. “Three of them are asking him questions about his life, and 60 are trying to convince him that he’s really dead.” Westerners often miss the cynicism and sophistication of Arab world.

It is clear that many Arabs see the Americans as an invading force. Yet they remain ambivalent about the events unfolding. In the United States, people assume that anti-Americanism is rife and violent throughout the Arab world. But the anti-Americanism that does exist is not so different from that of the Europeans, with the exception of the fanatic few.

Indeed, despite a war raging in one of the most important Arab capitals, there have been no reports of actual violence against American soft targets in the Middle East. We have not heard about Americans being killed or injured in Casablanca or Amman. This is a significant sidebar to this war that has attracted little comment. Dire predictions notwithstanding, Arabs did not rise up to destroy American interests in the Middle East.

This is because many of them knew Saddam Hussein’s record up close. They knew from the press about the gassing of the Kurds and the torture chambers. Some in my homeland of Egypt remember that Egyptian workers who had gone to work in Iraq the 1980’s came home home in coffins. Foreign workers from around the Arab world were killed by the gangs of Uday Hussein because they rooted for the wrong team in a soccer match.

People hope that this era of unbridled violence is coming to a close. The lesson of war has not been missed by ordinary Arabs. A cellphone and e-mail message traveling around the Arab world says the following: “Young Assad of Syria sent Bush a message telling him that if he wants him to go, he doesn’t have to go through that much trouble. He can just send a text message on his cell phone.”

Mamoun Fandy is a columnist for Asharq al-Awsat, a daily newspaper based in London.

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"It seems there was some deal. Saddam has put himself ahead of his people," said Yemeni government employee Saad Salem el-Faqih, 50.

Ya think? Saddam putting himself ahead of his people? Wow, why would ANYONE think he'd EVER do that???

Idiots.. the world's full of them.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by punjab da sher: *
its a blow to the Arabs ego, so much for the pan-arab concept, back to the sheesha bar
[/QUOTE]

well arab nationalism runs deep.. If it was not an arab country they could have cared less.

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Fraudiya yaar…do you want to read your sentence again. :hehe: I am not sure if many sri lankans are going gaga over arab nationalism. I would expect the arabs to.

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Chaltahai, many Pakistanis will be offended not to be included in arab-nationalism thingie. We aint no hindus.

I am not so sure about Sri Lankans, but you never know.

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Hey Tamil Tiger NYAhmadi, I see lot of Iraqis looting stuff from the govt buildings. Do you think we will get our share of the booty this year? man I am betting my retirement on that.

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CH what I meant was that arabs tend to bring up religion ans islamic identity and ummah very quickly when its their ass one the line, if it has nothing to do with arabs than all is well. Thats what I meant.

Having spent part of my life in KSA, i know their arrogance and nationalism first hand.

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.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Majestic: *

... filled with Arab Mujahiden?
[/QUOTE]

haa haa... I like that! I'll correct it further though... the correct spelling should be "MujaHIDDEN"

To answer your question though... the same reason many states in the US are filled with anti-government malitia and the KKK!

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I don't think these arabs have any right to be mad at the not so good resistence from the the 2 world powers. What is a country supposed to do when it is being attacked from three sides?? and these arabs who are in disgust, their own governments supported USA. IF these corrupt and shameless regimes in the Middle East didn't allow US troops to launch an attack on Iraq, reckon Iraq would have put up a much better fight.

Also...Iraq was isolated, they did not have any weapons, and the weapons they had, seemed like toys in front of the firepower of the British and the Americans. Iraqi's stil fought for 3 weeks, and that was nothing easy.

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hmmm… I wonder why they were isolated. Perhaps if Sadaam cut his 15+ palaces down to 2, they could have afforded better weapons or maybe even fed it’s people. :rolleyes:

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some human shield folks welcoming the pirates of bag dad :D

[thumb=B]gohome.JPG[/thumb]

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by 5Abi: *
some human shield folks welcoming the pirates of bag dad :D

[thumb=B]gohome.JPG[/thumb]
[/QUOTE]

;) :biggthumb and American's were suposedly being welcomed with flowers?? What a joke!

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Reading comprehension has taken a nosedive it seems. These protestors are telling the US human shields to go back. They are demonstrating in front of US marines who they welcomed.

"Go Home Human shields, you US wankers"