From the Arabic press

I have asked two of my Arab friends to read the newspapers' website from around the region.  The response:  The news is being reported almost exactly the same way it is being reported in western news outlets.  In fact, one Saudi newspaper had the headline of "A bad man is dead."  There are some questions about conspiracy theories but there's not many questions about whether or not he's really dead. (Of course, now even al quaeda has admitted he's dead.) While there's news in western papers about some clerics questioning the burial at sea as following Islamic practice there is no mention of it in the Arabic newspapers.

In other words, they are playing this card to the western media because they know it is not worth playing to Arab Muslims.

Interesting.

*****
Yesterday I was friended on FB by a former student.  He promptly put up a picture of bin Laden and tagged me in the photo.  You may be able to see the picture here.  I removed the tag for me and unfriended him.

I have no use for those who equate bin Laden to Bush.  Whatever misgivings I have about the former president - and they numerous - he never had the intent or desire to kill innocent civilians.  I have been thinking, "Why would anyone who thinks bin Laden is a great guy send a friend request to their American professor?"  Yesterday's friend request was clearly to piss me off but I couldn't explain why someone who friended me last year would have done it.

In the past week I have asked no less than a dozen of my Arab Muslim colleagues and friends.  I was told some bin Laden supporters really hate America and wouldn't be bothered if a lot of us were killed... but every person I talked with stressed that this is a tiny, tiny percentage.  Most believed it is the symbol of bin Laden that was appealing:  A man who came from a rich family and could have easily lived a life of luxury but shunned it all.  In addition to hating America bin Laden stood up to what he saw as dictatorships throughout the middle east. That added to his hero/cult leader status.

I have spent a lot of time in the past few days trolling Facebook to find positive bin Laden comments.  I have spent hours looking at not just the pages of previous students who friended me but their other friends as well.  Fortunately, I have found very few pro-bin Laden comments.

But here's what is weird:  Most of those who are pro-bin Laden have info pages full of the favorite American movies, favorite American music, and favorite American TV shows.

Huh?  That would suggest my friends here are probably right:  Most of the support of bin Laden is not so much anti-Americanism as it is anti-Bush/anti-American government.  (Obama is still seen as a reasonable person here - and that's not bias on my part; I purposefully expressed my disappointment with Obama on other issues to give my friends a comfort zone in criticizing him.  None did.)

Is there a moral or lesson in any of this?  None that I can see now except that the neo-con view of the world as "black-and-white/good-and-evil" is every bit as wrong as those who praise bin Laden.