alienation news

Arab world dismayed at 'new colonialism'

The West may have watched the pictures of jubilant crowds in Baghdad with joy, but in the Arab world most people watched with dismay. Many turned their televisions off, unable to watch any more.
Many Arabs who opposed Saddam Hussein's regime saw in the television pictures not the toppling of a ruthless tyrant, but the conquest of Iraq by a foreign occupying army. The most telling moment came when American soldiers briefly draped a statue of President Saddam with a US flag. "This is a new colonialism," was one Palestinian's reaction.
It was a dichotomy that troubled Arabs across the Middle East. "The lesson should be clear for Arab regimes in other countries," one Palestinian journalist said. "There is a big distinction between the people and the regimes who control them with tyranny. The Iraqis understand that the Americans did not come as liberators but to take control of their oil."