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Mojo_PeiPei · 01-16-2005, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

So far the only quotes I have seen are from the vice-president saying that he would like it if all foreign aid workers and troops would leave by a certain date. Before the Tsunami, these areas were off limits to foreigners and I'm sure they want to get back to status quo (regardless of how you feel about their reasons).

As for the guy in the OSB shirt... complaining about that is like complaining that some guy in the US is wearing a Che Guevera shirt... I am fairly certain that the US administration does not support the Cuban Revolution...

And finger pointing at a group of people dancing in the street post 9/11 is hardly fair either... do we have context? How many were involved? etc... This like saying because I see some Militiamen waving rifles around and forming an Army ALL Americans are armed to the teeth and fear the government's interfence...

Don't judge 201 million people by what you think you see on CNN...

It's no big secret that America is not liked in the Muslim world, and saying that is an understatement. Last time I checked Che Guevera wasn't responsible for the deaths of 3000 people, mostly Americans.

Quote:

Even before September 11, Osama bin Laden enjoyed a very high reputation due to his unremitting hostility to the United States. His biographer, Simon Reeve, wrote in 1999 that "Many who had never met him, whose only contact was through one of his interviews, a radio broadcast or Internet homepage, pronounced themselves ready to die for his cause."8 Hasan at-Turabi, the powerful Sudanese leader, found that bin Laden had developed "as a champion, as a symbol of Islam for all young people, in the whole Muslim world."9

When he emerged as the man behind the September 11 attacks, his reputation soared to extraordinary heights around the Muslim world. "Long live bin Laden" shouted five thousand demonstrators in the southern Philippines. In Pakistan, bin Laden's face sold merchandise and massive street rallies left two persons dead. Ten thousand marched in the capitals of Bangladesh and Indonesia. In northern Nigeria, Bin Laden had (according to Reuters) "achieved iconic status"10 and his partisans set off religious riots leading to two hundred deaths.11 Pro-bin Laden demonstrations took place even in Mecca, where overt political activism is unheard of.

....

Survey research helps understand these sentiments. In the Palestinian Authority, a Bir Zeit poll found that 26 percent of Palestinians considered the September 11 attacks consistent with Islamic law.22 In Pakistan, a Gallup found a nearly identical 24 percent reaching this conclusion.23 Even those who consider the attacks on September 11 an act of terrorism (64 percent of both Palestinians and Pakistanis) showed respect for these as acts of political defiance and technical prowess. "Of course we're upset that so many died in New York. But at the same time, we're in awe of what happened," said a young Cairene woman.24 An online survey of Indonesians found 50 per cent seeing bin Laden as a "justice fighter" and 35 per cent a terrorist.25 More broadly, I estimate that bin Laden enjoyed in those first weeks the emotional support of half the Muslim world.

With the exception of one government-staged anti-bin Laden demonstration in Pakistan and very few prominent Islamic scholars, hardly anyone publicly denounced him in September or October 2001. The only Islamic scholar in Egypt who unreservedly condemned the September 11 suicide operations admitted that he is completely isolated. 26 Further, not a single Muslim government came out publicly in support of the American bombings against him. American officials were waiting in vain for Muslim politicians to speak up. "It'd be nice if some leaders came out and said that the idea the U.S. is targeting Islam is absurd," notes one U.S. diplomat.27 They did not do so because to so meant to contradict bin Laden's wide adulation.

http://www.meforum.org/article/pipes/417