"American Planes Like Angels"
Michael Totten has posted a most interesting interview with his colleague Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, who is on the ground in Benghazi. We're at several removes of judgment here, but Totten is a reporter I trust who writes that people he trusts find her a trustworthy observer. (Take that for what it's worth. Better than nothing, I guess.)
The rebels I’ve met so far are mainly young, educated, middle class, urban people with a powerful wish for democracy. ... In Benghazi, every person I’ve met so far has insisted on showing me the bridge in town where the Qaddafi troops arrived and started firing—and that bridge is actually inside Benghazi—saying he would cleanse the city “street by street, and house by house.” They all say, “Allah saved us, he sent us French and British and American planes like angels, Alhamdulillah.” ... They’re genuinely surprised that they’re getting so much help from the West, and they are very very grateful for it. Everyone is saying, “Sarkozy saved Benghazi! Thank you Sarkozy, and thank you Cameron and Obama.” The West is heroic here in Benghazi.
Well, I hope so. Wouldn't that be nice.
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Oct '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
From her lips to God's ears.
May '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Emily is certainly relieved. And I was pleased to see how well the rebels treated our fallen airmen. There may be al Qaeda elements, but you can't swing a dead cat in the Muslim world without hitting one of those. Which is perhaps an insensitive turn of phrase. Sorry, Claire.
Oct '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Nothing wrong with a bit of cat scratch fever.
Feb '11
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Oh. Allah saved them. Of course. Not the Christian God with Jesus and mercy and all that, but Allah.
That's a narrative for you: Allah befuddled the Crusaders so they would kill our enemies, and allow the Caliphate to be established.
Forgive my harsh words, and I'm as happy to see people rescued from a murderer as any other Westerner. But I read that bit, and I remembered all I've read from Mark Steyn over the years. We're saving lives in the Ummah, lots of them, at enormous cost, and our reward is an endless series of terrorist attacks. I see decent happy stories such as this, and then later from the lands we help comes the terrorism, mixed with threats and promises of our destruction.
This won't end well, and it hasn't had a good middle or beginning either.
Aug '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
The flattery will continue until we've handed them the victory, and then al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood will order them to step into line and declare for the New Caliphate. We'll then become the "evil crusaders" who only want their oil. The 'progressives' here will back them up.
Spot on, Xennady.
Edited on Mar 31, 2011 at 3:11amAug '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
The desire to be loved can cloud one's judgment and cause a tremendous amount of misery and regret. .
Edited on Mar 31, 2011 at 3:38amRe: "American Planes Like Angels"
The word "Allah" means "God." No Arabic speaker of any religion would use any other word for God--this includes Mizrahi Jews, Bahá'ís, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholic Christians--so unless you want Libyans to speak some language other than Arabic, or be atheists, asking them not to praise God is a bit much.
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Saving lives seems like its own reward to me. Whether ultimately our policy in Libya is wise or apt to result in more good than harm, I don't know. That's a separate question. But from a Judeo-Christian theological perspective, the argument for saving's someone's life is not, "because you might get something back."
Mar '11
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
<<But from a Judeo-Christian theological perspective, the argument for saving's someone's life is not, "because you might get something back.">>
No argument there, even many non-religious people would agree with this. However, it would be naive (and I am sure you don't mean it that way) to argue that the US intervention in Libya (or Iraq or the Balkans or Vietnam or Korea or WWII or WWI) has had its sole purpose to save lives. The lives of Americans have been put at risk because the people we elected believed that it was in the interests of the United States to intervene, and these interests have involved more than saving lives of non-Americans, however laudable this latter objective might be. There are a lot of questions as to whom we will end up actually helping in Libya, questions that were not addressed when we were helping and arming the Afghanistan "freedom fighters" in the early 1980s. Kind words of thanks although good to hear should not obscure these concerns.
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
I agree. No argument at all from me. If we do save lives, though, I praise God for it. And I hope to God our policy results, in the long term, in more lives being saved than lost.
I'm as nervous about this as everyone else here. But I'm not ever going to be cynical about saving lives. I hope this intervention is wise and I hope it works. I want nothing more than for American planes to be angels.
As for the rest--I'm not in Libya, never been there in my life, and it's very hard for me to say what's really happening. I'm not sure I could add much clarity to the matter.
Sep '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Who knew The Light would come from bombs?
Jul '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
The word "Allah" means "God." No Arabic speaker of any religion would use any other word for God--this includes Mizrahi Jews, Bahá'ís, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholic Christians--so unless you want Libyans to speak some language other than Arabic, or be atheists, asking them not to praise God is a bit much. · Mar 31 at 4:06am
Here's a wikipedia page that counters your wikipedia page.
It is quite lame to use wikipedia as a reference.
Jul '10
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Michael Tee
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
The word "Allah" means "God." No Arabic speaker of any religion would use any other word for God--this includes Mizrahi Jews, Bahá'ís, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholic Christians--so unless you want Libyans to speak some language other than Arabic, or be atheists, asking them not to praise God is a bit much. · Mar 31 at 4:06am
It is quite lame to use wikipedia as a reference. · Mar 31 at 7:54am
This argument with regard to God/Allah is plain foolish. It is not the word used but how it is used by who that matters. I use the word Allah when I am speaking in Turkish, and it means nothing different than the word God. Almost everyone I know in Turkey uses it the same way. If I used the word God, hardly anyone would know the meaning of it. If Americans are foolish enough to import the Arab propaganda word "Allah" the way the Muslim Brotherhood uses it, sorry but that is not necessarily anyone else's fault.
Feb '11
Re: "American Planes Like Angels"
Okan Altiparmak
This argument with regard to God/Allah is plain foolish. It is not the word used but how it is used by who that matters. I use the word Allah when I am speaking in Turkish, and it means nothing different than the word God. Almost everyone I know in Turkey uses it the same way. If I used the word God, hardly anyone would know the meaning of it. If Americans are foolish enough to import the Arab propaganda word "Allah" the way the Muslim Brotherhood uses it, sorry but that is not necessarily anyone else's fault. · Mar 31 at 1:19pm
OK. But I note that in my experience "Allah" is always used when discussing the "God" of Muslims- even though it means the same thing, and even when every other word is translated into English.
Interesting detail, that. So even though I know the words "God' and "Allah" mean the same thing linguistically in practice their meanings have diverged, at least in the United States.
So yes I suppose this means we have imported the Arab propaganda word the way the Muslim Brotherhood uses it.