Tuesday, March 14, 2006

An American living in Dubai seeks to understand his fellow man.

Read the whole thing.

An Emaratis Thoughts addressed to the American people.

Read the whole thing.

Both are truly inspired writing. Sometimes sadness brings out the best in us.

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any comments on this poll?

Attitudes ... improved slightly in the UAE, from 87 percent who said in 2002 that they disliked the United States to 73 percent this year.

12:18 AM  
Blogger John B. Chilton said...

Point being?

5:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Point being that I thought we were concerned with those xenophobic Americans being overly irrational when 60+% of those polled were against the port deal and apparently in a state of widespread panic. But it looks like the subjects of the UAE are just as human as the rest of us.

7:55 AM  
Blogger John B. Chilton said...

Nicely stated anomolous. Thank you for the clarification. Point taken. You are using the "everybody does it" argument, and it is a legitimate argument as long as it is not used to excuse one's own behavior.

Counterpoint: You fail, utterly, to distinguish between dislike of the US and like/trust for/of Americans. Consider that opposition to the US has to do with US foreign policy. I happen to be in the distinct minority that there is more good than bad to that policy. A minority both among residents of the UAE and among citizens of the US. (I am among both groups.) Residents of the UAE are not xenophobic - for God's sake most of us are xenos and we are welcomed by the 20% of the country who are Emiratis.

Your "logic" would lead to the conclusion that Americans dislike themselves.

9:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You fail, utterly, to distinguish between dislike of the US and like/trust for/of Americans. Consider that opposition to the US has to do with US foreign policy.

Well, I guess that's probably because the "I (heart) Americans/I hate U.S. policy" crowd sometimes sounds so phony. Like a man who rails on about how black people are poor lazy criminals, but then tries to come off as impartial observer of humanity by stating, "...but I have many black friends."

I assume in the UAE that US foreign policy means Israel. But is there any discernable difference between the opinion of the average American and actual US foreign policy? Not from my experience anyway. I guess I'd be interested to know the percentage of Americans who think we should send aid to a Hamas dominated Palestinian government.

9:10 PM  

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