“We are the enemies of one another, I’m sad to say. We all hate one another, we deceive one another, we gloat at the misfortune of one another, and we conspire against one another. Our intelligence agencies conspire against one another, instead of defending us against the enemy. We are the enemies of one another, and an Arab’s enemy is another Arab’s friend. If only we used such ferocity against the enemy… ” “We meet in Syria, which is an Arab country. But the relations Syria has with Russia, Iran, or Turkey are a thousand times better than its relations with its Arab neighbors. The relations that Libya has with Italy are a thousand times better than its relations with its neighbors, Egypt and Tunisia. This is the situation of the Arabs.”  — Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi (translated to English courtesy of the controversial MEMRI).

I am not an Arab by birth, but I do feel as though I am now part Arab, considering that I have been married to an Arab man for almost a quarter of a century which has also brought us, with the will and blessing of our Creator, six beautiful children of Arab descent into this world. Therefore, I believe that this entitles me to be considered, at the least, as a concerned insider.

While I am certainly no fan of the Libyan dictator Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi, who is suspected of being behind the disappearance of a very well known and respected Muslim Lebanese leader, Imam Musa Al-Sadr, the man did give a speech at the last Arab League summit in Syria that really should have hit home for Arabs of all walks of life and most especially the Arab leaders, whether they were in attendance at the conference or not. A number of them were not in attendance; possibly because they were busy conspiring against some of the other Arab leaders who were in attendance at the summit?

As I was watching Qadhafi speak, the cameras would focus from time to time on an Arab leader or representative, and the expressions on their faces went from expressionless to uncomfortable smirks of conformity.   I know that I certainly related to that speech and I know many other Arabs by birth who also related to it, even though they, like me, have no personal love, trust, or even like for Qadhafi.  Aside from whatever his intentions were for giving such a speech, and we might correctly suspect it was at least partially based on some selfish or paranoid motives stemming from a dictatorial background, Qadhafi brought forth in his speech the sad state of many of the leaders of the Arabs and through them the Arab people.

Qadhafi made some good points about how, when the Arabs are united they can easily overpower their occupiers, and he used the Algerian and Libyan occupations as examples of Arab unity in the face of the enemies of the time. He also pointed out that the leaders from other Arab countries that came to the aid of their Arab brethren were not labeled, as they are now, terrorists for doing so. 

Yet in complete contrast, as he pointed out earlier in his speech, when Arab leaders are not united, occupations in the Arab world will continue for long periods of time and can even become unclear and confusing over time, such as is the case of Palestine, currently called Israel, and now in Iraq.

If we were to look at the state of the Arab world today, we can see, despite the wealth of certain areas due to blessings from our Creator of natural resources, a weak and unstable region of the world. We see a region fraught with divisions, where outsiders have been able to manipulate the region with the stated goal of stabilizing in order to serve their vital interests; however the outside interference has been even more destabilizing to the region as it has not been for the most part in the interests of the people of the region.

Qadhafi questioned the Arab leaders at the summit: Why did they allow for the captivity of Arafat for several years before his death without taking it to the Security Council or asking for an inquiry into his death, in which many believe he was poisoned?

Qadhafi also questioned the invasion and occupation of Iraq that has led to the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands, and the displacement of millions of Iraqi civilians, when Osama Bin Laden is not Iraqi and not even one of the hijackers on 9/11 was of Iraqi descent.

I am someone who likes to roam around the Internet looking for news that I cannot usually find in the U.S. mainstream and often I like to visit and read   Arab bloggers writing in English.  I have become recently interested in reading from Iraqi bloggers, considering that there is not a lot of reliable information available, in order to get a good grasp of what is actually taking place on the ground in Iraq. It was amazing for me to discover such completely different perspectives concerning the now dead Saddam Hussein, and the invasion and present occupation in Iraq.

One blog in particular completely surprised me, as it is a blog by an Iraqi woman written quite beautifully (even though with much obvious hatred towards all of those who are considered as the enemy) with stunning paintings, who has nothing but praise for Saddam Hussein and who actually appears to believe that the present war and occupation in Iraq has been all along a U.S./Israel/Iran/Syria and its alleged proxies Hizbullah, Hamas, and the American leftists conspiracy against Arabs, Saddam and the Ba’athists in Iraq.  This woman is just one example of how the conspiracies and hatred of divided leaders can lead to the paranoia of their followers, no matter how ridiculous these fears may seem to others. 

I am certainly not and never have been a fan of Saddam Hussein either. I happen to believe that he was a paranoid and brutal dictator and I can understand why many of his own people feared and despised him. Yet at the same time, I do not entirely blame this Iraqi woman for her suspicious state of mind considering the present condition of her country and people. I also cannot blame her considering that even I found Saddam’s trial, followed by his immediate execution by hanging and its timing, which just happened to fall during Eid al-Adha, as being suspicious.  I never understood the reasons why Saddam wasn’t tried in an international court such as the Hague for all of his alleged crimes against his people, not to mention his alleged crimes concerning the war he started in opposition to Iran, the invasion of Kuwait, and his attempt at having former President George Bush Sr. assassinated.  If he had been tried in an international court of law, maybe it would have cleared up some of the questions so many of us have had concerning the allegations against him, even though I doubt that clearing some of these questions up would have changed most of our minds concerning what many of us consider to be an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. 

Nevertheless, we cannot return to and change the past, but hopefully we can learn something from it. And as I believe that Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi rightly pointed out, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Arabs and their leaders is the hatred they have for each other, which doesn’t allow for many of them to unite in defending each other against their common enemies.  This is why so many of the Muslim people of the region have turned even more towards Islamic resistance, what we now call the Islamists,  in the hopes of uniting the Arabs under their leadership, as opposed to the failed Arab leadership,  in order to defeat what they consider to be their common enemies.