Anonymous/Moneyed Arabs
Well, the anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror is anonymous no longer.
The Phoenix is reporting that Anonymous is one Michael Scheuer - an overt CIA employee. Scheuer is reportedly 'a 22-year CIA veteran who ran the Counterterrorist Center’s bin Laden station (code-named "Alec") from 1996 to 1999.'
A snippet from The Phoenix piece:
Immediately after the attacks, the WSJ had correspondents ask these "moneyed Arabs" - the WSJ's essentially two questions.
The first was, "do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the U.S.?
Now remember, these aren't destitute, militant religious fundamentalists, these are the WSJ's constituency - people with lots of wealth. Approximately 70% of respondents had an unfavorable view of the U.S.
The other question was a follow-up. Why do you harbor animosity towards the U.S. The answers were essentially three, and widely held by those harboring 'unfavorable views' of the U.S.
The Arabs were most troubled that the U.S. supported repressive, undemocratic regimes in the middle-east.
They were also angry about the difference of policies regarding the Israelis and Palestinians. They were also frustrated that the U.S. wasn't able to help solve the Israeli/Palestinian issue.
Lastly, they were angry over the decade of sanctions against Iraq which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths(remember, this was well before the Gulf War redux).
These were most often cited reasons for their unfavorable views of the U.S.
This is almost 'line and verse' the steady message bin Laden has broadcasting over the years.
There is no link, as this was only in the print version, and I can find no mention of the piece online. I have some audio that makes reference to the survey, but I cannot find it at the moment(I have over 800 hours of talks on disk, but I have it indexed rather poorly). You can trust me on this. The numbers and reasons for Arab concern are accurate. If I can find the audio, I'll upload it, and link to it.
Go ahead and read The Phoenix article. There is a lot of factual material that isn't widely distributed, as well as speculation about motives.
'They' don't hate us because of our freedoms. 'They' hate our foreign policy positions.
Update: I'm sorry that I didn't refer to "The Phoenix" as "The Boston Phoenix." It's a habit.
The Phoenix is reporting that Anonymous is one Michael Scheuer - an overt CIA employee. Scheuer is reportedly 'a 22-year CIA veteran who ran the Counterterrorist Center’s bin Laden station (code-named "Alec") from 1996 to 1999.'
A snippet from The Phoenix piece:
Public interest in the book itself isn't at all hard to understand: it's not every day that an active US intelligence officer publishes a work that disputes the Bush administration's assertions, holding that, among other things, bin Laden is not on the run; the invasion of Iraq has not made the United States safer; and that Islamists are in a campaign of insurgency, not terrorism, against the US because of US policies, not out of hatred for American values.The book confirms the findings of a survey of "moneyed Arabs" conducted by the Wall Street Journal in the days following 11 Sept. 2001.
Immediately after the attacks, the WSJ had correspondents ask these "moneyed Arabs" - the WSJ's essentially two questions.
The first was, "do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of the U.S.?
Now remember, these aren't destitute, militant religious fundamentalists, these are the WSJ's constituency - people with lots of wealth. Approximately 70% of respondents had an unfavorable view of the U.S.
The other question was a follow-up. Why do you harbor animosity towards the U.S. The answers were essentially three, and widely held by those harboring 'unfavorable views' of the U.S.
The Arabs were most troubled that the U.S. supported repressive, undemocratic regimes in the middle-east.
They were also angry about the difference of policies regarding the Israelis and Palestinians. They were also frustrated that the U.S. wasn't able to help solve the Israeli/Palestinian issue.
Lastly, they were angry over the decade of sanctions against Iraq which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths(remember, this was well before the Gulf War redux).
These were most often cited reasons for their unfavorable views of the U.S.
This is almost 'line and verse' the steady message bin Laden has broadcasting over the years.
There is no link, as this was only in the print version, and I can find no mention of the piece online. I have some audio that makes reference to the survey, but I cannot find it at the moment(I have over 800 hours of talks on disk, but I have it indexed rather poorly). You can trust me on this. The numbers and reasons for Arab concern are accurate. If I can find the audio, I'll upload it, and link to it.
Go ahead and read The Phoenix article. There is a lot of factual material that isn't widely distributed, as well as speculation about motives.
'They' don't hate us because of our freedoms. 'They' hate our foreign policy positions.
Update: I'm sorry that I didn't refer to "The Phoenix" as "The Boston Phoenix." It's a habit.
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