A rchive Date
[ 11-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
|
[http://www.msnbc.com/news/857808.asp?0cv=CB10
Some Arabs see double standard
Arab world focuses on U.S. treatment of N. Korea vs. Iraq
By Brian Williams
NBC NEWS
Jan. 10 - Throughout the Arab world, many are asking: Why is Iraq being singled out for attack while North Korea is not? NBC’s Brian Williams hears lots of talk of a double standard.
YASEEM AL FAR-RAH is a student in suburban Amman, Jordan. It is so widely assumed that war is on the way, that her plans for college have been put on hold.
“My mom was so worried because of the war and what’s going to happen in the gulf so she said, ‘Wait here and we’ll decide after the war,’ ” says Yaseem.
The pictures of a U.S. military heading into a war are all over the Arab world, but they’re also hearing about North Korea and the dangers it poses — and they see a certain hypocrisy in U.S. policy.
“They see duplicity,” says George Hawatmeh, publisher of the Jordan Times. “They see double standards in dealing with the two issues. People feel North Korea is much more dangerous to the States and to its interests than Iraq would ever be.”
Arab media and political cartoons now openly mock the United States for ignoring the North Korean threat. They say it’s Iraq’s oil that the Americans are worried about.
“Some people tend to say this is an American attempt to control Iraqi oil; others believe this is basically a kind of hatred of Arabs and Muslims by the United States and other Western countries,” says Dr. Gamal Soltan of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
In other Arab cities, many people feel unfairly targeted and there has been an alarming decline in Arab opinion of the United States.
A recent poll indicated that only 25 percent of all Jordanians feel favorably toward the United States. In Egypt, that number drops to a stunning 6 percent with favorable attitudes toward Americans. Some in Kuwait see it differently. They’ve been invaded once and see Saddam as the clear and present danger.
“I think you cannot compare an owner of a supermarket which sells weapons, guns, knives, with somebody who uses them,” says Sami Al-Nesif, an Al-Anba columnist.
For now, in the streets and shopping malls of the Arab world, they see a United States picking its targets, and wielding a big stick
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|