From: bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Re: ARAB UNITY
Date: 12 Nov 92 20:28:09 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson


In article <1992Nov12.171724.2230@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu> rached@sample.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rached Zantout) writes:
>In article <26313@optima.cs.arizona.edu>, bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken) writes:
>> 
>> >-THE GULF PEOPLE WHO BELEIVE THAT USA IS GOD AND THEIR SAVIOUR
 
>> Most of the Gulf Arabs I've talked to are grateful that the US
>> will defend them, when they really can't count on Arab or Muslim
>> countries to do this.  If they could trust other Arab or Muslim
>> countries to help them in a time of need then I'm sure that they
>> would be much less dependent on the US. 
> And look look at how,
>> just because of jealousy, most of the Arab and Muslim world
>> cheered on Saddam as he raped and pillaged Kuwait.
>> 
>>

>Dave,

>The Saudi's were offered hundreds of thousands of Muslim Mujahideen from
>Afghanistan to Protect Saudi Arabia and fight Saddam. This was before they
>decided to ask US and multinational troops to come. Remember those Mujahideen are
>trained to fight soviet made armies and they actually defeated the Russians in
>their country and the Russians were near their supply lines with no embargo and
>lots and lots of weapons. 

Even if hundreds of thousands of Afghani mujahideen could have been deployed,
I doubt that they could have done much to the Iraqis.  In Afghanistan
they had rugged mountainous terrain that is ideal to guerilla warfare
and by underarmed forces in general.  However, the exact opposite is
true in Kuwait.  They would have been slaughtered en masse by the
Iraqis, who would know their every movement and could pound them with
their loads of artillery, tanks, planes, etc.

>Still those gulf people that are thankful to US should be shameful that they
>cannot even rely on their armies to defend their countries. Although they have
>the resources and the money to build capable and technologically advanced armies,
>they asked US to interfere. In Islam a basic principle is that you should prepare
>whatever you can to be strong and then go into battle (once you do this you may
>not even have to go to battle since the ennemy will be afraid) and the results
>are with Allah.

>So you see, if Kuwait had prepared an army capable of defending it, it won't have
>needed US or even Egypt to help defend it.

This is quite true.  However, there is no human way that Kuwait or even
Saudi Arabia can defend themselves against larger, well-armed neighbors like
Iran and Iraq.  Their populations are simply not large enough.  There is 
only so much that high-tech weapons can do.
 
>> >           ************
>> >
>> >THE ONLY SOLUTION IS THE ISLAMIC UNITY
>> 
>> Yeah, Muslims were really united in decrying the rape and pillage
>> of Kuwait and Kuwaitis, weren't they?  Do you want them to be
>> 100% united in cheering on the rape and pillage of a Muslim-majority
>> country?  I know there were some dissenters, but maybe the fundamentalists
>> in Egypt can kill them, too...
 


>Dave, if you look back and se you will find that the leaders of the Muslim
>movement around the world were the first to denounce the invasion of Kuwait.

I was commenting on the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Muslim people
who were demonstrating in the streets for Saddam, not the proclamations
of a bunch of Muslim leaders.  And it didn't help that some of these leaders
proclaimed it unislamic to accept help from non-Muslim countries, when
Muslim countries were unwilling and/or unable to help roll back the
invasion.  They were declaring illegitimate the only realistic way
for Kuwait to get its country back and stop the rape and pillage, and
for Saudi Arabia to deter Iraq.  With friends like these.....

>                   Yes, as a Muslim I deplore what Saddam did and I wasn't
>cheated by his slogans. 

Glad to hear that.  I think that few in the Arab or Muslims worlds who
cheered him on had many illusions about him.  They were glad that someone
was thumbing their nose at the West, to make up for recent (perceived)
humiliations suffered at the hands of the West.  And they (at least Arab
many nationalists) liked the idea of a strong Arab uniting the Arab
world by force, no matter how many were killed in the process.

>                       Yet, I am shameful that one billion Muslims with all the
>resources they had and all the armies they have could not have defended Kuwait
>and Saudi Arabia against an agressor but they needed the "New World Order" to
>come into their countries, ruin one of their most important countries (Iraq) and
>kill of them a number that only Allah knows how big it is.

Again, given all the support that Saddam had in the streets of countries
with Muslim populations, it would have been political suicide for the
rulers of these countries to help out in a significant way.  Even doing
what they did was quite risky.

>rached


--
Dave Bakken                               Internet: bakken@cs.arizona.edu
Dept. of Computer Science; U of Arizona   Voice:    +1 602 621 4098      
Tucson, AZ 85721; USA                     FAX:      +1 602 621 4246
The fact that you're paranoid doesn't prove they're *not* out to get you.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic