Thursday, March 16, 2006

Wafa Sultan Interview (Transcript)

Transctipr of Interview

Video of Interview

Whatever your opinion of this, you don't hear Middle Easterners have this kind of discussion too often on a public forum. I hope nothing bad happens to Wafa Sultan.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Stephen, I agree to a certain extent but ultimately it brings it down to the real issue "öil". Isn't that what the middle east war is all about? Control for oil? The Americans give the excuse of protecting Israel but they have their own motives--for their own benefit. If they were really concerned about Terrorism in the World, they would have responded when there were bomb blasts in Bombay and our embassy was targetted. No,it was not until 9/11 when they were hurting, that they woke up bacause now it concerend them. So it is for selfish motives and has always been. Right now the war is causing the petrol prices to rise tremendously. If Bush were to take on Iran, and it seems like he is,those are going to sky-rocket. Who is going to hurt the most? India and China with no oil resources, this is going to hurt both the booming economies. Who is going to benefit? US! Kill two birds with one stone! India and China have been the biggest threat to the US economy. Dubya might come across as a dunce, but he ain't that dumb.
Even if you are a dispensationalist, and I am, I can't help but liken America's "helping God"in, protecting the Jews to make sure they receive their salvation, to the efforts of Rebekah's efforts to try and "help God" in making sure that the blessing he had reserved for Jacob reached him and not Esau.
God doesn't need the US to do this, he can and will do it inspite of them!!!!!
By the way, Great blogspot!!!
Benjymaama
If you think this is an inappropriate response on oyur blogspot, please delete it.

Skinniyah said...

I'm with you on the oil issue, but I don't really think it's that simple. We usually tend to look at it as "what's the one reason this is happening" and it's not that clear.

This is the way I look at it.

1. Oil, huge issue. America moves because of Oil. Though some of the reasons you stated why Oil is important are not exactly true. The US is hurting BAD with some of the highest oil prices ever for them, and it's directly because of their policies in the middle east.

2. Political stability, huge issue - there is a vested interest that the US has in polical stability.

3. Israel, pretty big issue - and I don't think we can really put it down to religious reasons. If you look at the US, a huge percentage of top businesspeople, hollywood, politics, you name it, are Jews - it's a powerful lobby group. Similar to the Indian lobby. What do they lobby about in Washington? Support India - it's just that Indians don't hold as much power as the Jews.

There are so many (more) issues intermingled, that it's hard to point to one and say - THAT's the motive. Sure, selfishness is part of it. But tell me that ANY country in the world is altruistic in it's diplomacy? It's just that right now America has the power to dictate terms. India wants to be a superpower. You can bet if that ever happens she will dictate her own terms.

But the whole terrorism onslaught on the US was like the straw that broke the camels back, and because the US HAD to take action, all of a sudden it had to confront global terror, like in India. All the other issues fueled the action. A country will not burn it's fingers in someone else's issue unless it's going to get some benefit out of it.

All I'm saying is, it's a little more complicated, and there are too many issues involved to make it so simplistic. Oil? Sure, its a factor. But not the driving force, I don't think. It's like a ball tumbling down the ski slope that gathers momentum and volume... it's all jumbled up into one dangerous monster of a snowball. And it's very hard to define.

Skinniyah said...

Inappropriate? Not a chance! I love this stuff - there's a lot to learn.