Ali: Appeasement Will Not Work in Middle East

RUSH: This is Ali in Mobile, Alabama. Welcome, nice to have you on the program.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. This is my first time calling your program. I’ve been listening to you for the past eight years.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
<a target=new href=”/home/stacks/seuss.guest.html”></a>CALLER: It has been enlightening to me. I’m originally from the Middle East. I was born in Jordan, and I lived there for about 21 years before I moved to the United States and I just want to share with you my perspective of the way people in the Middle East and in the Moslem world view us. They will hate us forever. The public image that we have is pretty bad. There is nothing we can do to improve that unless we do two things: Either try to convert them into democracy, or have them respect us. Respect is the only way.
RUSH: Let me ask you this, though, Ali. If we abandon Israel, what impact would that have on our, quote, unquote, image?
CALLER: I don’t think that’s going to change anything at all, because —
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: It’s not.
RUSH: Really?
CALLER: I really think it’s not going to change anything. The fact is that if you read the newspaper that’s controlled, all the media that’s being controlled by the governments of these Middle Eastern nations, they’re all basically saying how the West is bad, how the United States is the root of evil; they’re trying to influence, you know, the world, they’re trying to take over. I mean if you look at all the propaganda that’s being spewed over there, ’til today, I read it off the Internet, and I keep up with it, it is just appalling to me.
RUSH: So you’re saying that appeasing them on G’itmo and Abu Ghraib is not going to make a dent?
CALLER: Rush, I think that all these G’itmo hearings that we’re talking about is a waste of time. We’re not going to appease them that way.
RUSH: Based on what you’re saying it sounds like it might even make us even weaker by making us look like patsies.
CALLER: Absolutely. The way they view us, if we don’t follow through — when we commit to something and we don’t follow through — we’re going to be viewed as very weak people, spineless people, and they know that we yield under pressure. That’s the way they view us.
RUSH: Mogadishu.

<a target=new href=”http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=2181&sourceid=38461944&bfpid=43396067660&bfmtype=dvd”></a>CALLER: Absolutely. Mogadishu, Beirut. I mean they have that experience in the past — and they feel like, any time we parade American soldiers being killed or executed, we going to feel like, “Oh, we need to pull out of there We can’t keep going. This is ridiculous,” you know? That’s the understanding that they have, and this appeasement policy is not going to work. It’s not going to change their minds. They’ve been brainwashed from a younger age, since they are in school, and in the media, everywhere, in mosques, everywhere, everybody is basically saying how to United States is so bad, how the West, you know, hate Moslems, and you’re not going to change that overnight. I think strength, democracy is the only way to change that.
RUSH: So you would agree with our Iraq policy of trying to bring freedom to those people so they can make their own self-determination in life?
CALLER: Rush, I couldn’t agree with you more. I never thought that in my lifetime that there would be a spark, there would be any kind of hope for peace or democracy in the Middle East ’til I’ve seen what happened in Iraq. I really believe that Iraq is the country that’s going to be a beacon of democracy, but we have to follow through our commitment.
RUSH: All right, let me ask you a question. How long did you say you’ve been in America, Ali?
CALLER: I’ve been in the United States for 25 years now.
RUSH: Twenty-five years. And how old are you?
CALLER: I’m 46. I just made 46.
RUSH: Happy birthday.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: So you bring the experience of having lived there for a while, and you’ve moved and immigrated to the United States. How do you view the Democrats like Durbin and Nancy Pelosi and all the others who want to engage in this appeasement policy to try to affect our image? How do you look at this, or how do you react to it when you hear it and see it?
CALLER: Well, it really hurts me so bad because I have gained so much from being here in the United States. I worked so hard, and I work for a Fortune 500 company. I’ve done very well, and I know I couldn’t have done better anywhere else except in the United States. Had I stayed in Jordan where I was born I wouldn’t have accomplished anything – and to me to hear that, you know, people bad-mouthing the United States, trying to appease other people, it really hurts me. You know, it just makes me feel very angry to hear that. I would like for Senator Durbin to go live and just pick a country in the Middle East. Go live there for maybe 30 days, experience it, and I think he will come back and change his mind.
RUSH: Well, I offered to pay for such trip, if he would take it. I don’t expect him to take me up on it. I offered to pay for a trip to G’itmo and to Auschwitz and to the killing fields of Cambodia to go there and look, and maybe it would change his mind. But he’s done his quasi-apology now. Another point about it, you know, these Middle Eastern governments, one of the things that people get confused about. These Middle East governments are not doing what they’re doing over there for the people. They are not trying to protect any aspect of the people. They’re trying to protect their own fiefdoms, leadership positions and so forth and so on.
There’s the most outrageous story today in the Tehran Times. It’s written by a western journalist, talking about the Iranian election, and they say that the Iranian election — which was a fraud — was more democratic than the American election of 2000, and that’s that’s being published in the Tehran Times and the people of Iran are reading it, and whoever else has access to it, either the dead-tree version or the website. And of course the Democrats, once they get wind of that, I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear some Democrat someday saying the Iranian elections were more fair than the 2000 elections in the United States and that’s why we need the count every vote act or whatever it is, and it just infuriates people. Anyway, Ali, thanks so much for the call. It’s great to have you and I’m glad you were able to get through.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

<a target=new href=”/home/stacks/seuss.guest.html”> </a>RUSH: Well, I offered to pay for such trip, if he would take it. I don’t expect him to take me up on it. I offered to pay for a trip to G’itmo and to Auschwitz and to the killing fields of Cambodia to go there and look, and maybe it would change his mind. But he’s done his quasi-apology now. Another point about it, you know, these Middle Eastern governments, one of the things that people get confused about. These Middle East governments are not doing what they’re doing over there for the people. They are not trying to protect any aspect of the people. They’re trying to protect their own fiefdoms, leadership positions and so forth and so on.
There’s the most outrageous story today in the Tehran Times. It’s written by a western journalist, talking about the Iranian election, and they say that the Iranian election — which was a fraud — was more democratic than the American election of 2000, and that’s that’s being published in the Tehran Times and the people of Iran are reading it, and whoever else has access to it, either the dead-tree version or the website. And of course the Democrats, once they get wind of that, I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear some Democrat someday saying the Iranian elections were more fair than the 2000 elections in the United States and that’s why we need the count every vote act or whatever it is, and it just infuriates people. Anyway, Ali, thanks so much for the call. It’s great to have you and I’m glad you were able to get through.