The Straight Dope Message Boards is an interesting place. For my money, the quality of discussion that goes on there is much, much better than most other message boards like Kuro5shin or Metafilter. The resident expert on the Middle East, Collounsbury, recently started a thread on the Iraq War. His view from the Middle East is quite scary. Here's his take on the mood there:
Extremely angry. As I said here or elsewhere, I have never seen it this bad. My own driver told me he was happy to see Americans dying. So did my secretary. Neither are radical people. It gives you pause.On the views of Iraqi expats:
Yes, I have number of good friends in the Iraqi community. In large part they are looking forward to a post-Saddam future, but again there is little to no support among them for the war, and the manner in which it is happening they find humiliating and are very angry. My housekeeper, a Shiite told me she was happy to see Iraqis fighting back, to teach Americans a lesson.On the impact of the American "diplomacy":
Now, let me be clear, this was not inevitable. Before the fiasco of such glaringly incompetent diplomacy, there was no small reservoir of anticipation that perhaps this could be done right. That is, the type of anti-Americanism was different. Resentment for the big boy, but a desire to see the thing done in the right way. I.e. coming in with an international coalition -- not the transparent charade -- would have, in my judgment, resulted in a sort of superficial resentment and anti-Americanism, and secret approval. What I am seeing is a really visceral reaction. The manner in which this has happened so far has been stunningly damaging. I am fairly skilled at navigating these waters and normally people talk to me in a kind of 'Arab to Arab manner, but let me be clear, I have begun to question my own safety to a certain extent.(spelling errors corrected in quote).
Read the whole thread here. It's fairly long.
Posted by ahyatt at March 27, 2003 04:59 PM