Obama impressed Muslims with his humility and respect and they were thrilled by his citing of Quranic verses. Aiming to repair ties with the Muslim world that had been strained under his predecessor George W. Bush, he opened with the traditional Arabic greeting "Assalamu Aleikum," which drew enthusiastic applause from his audience at Cairo University.

Even some extremist Web sites, which have carried statements from al-Qaida in the past, gave rare praise for Obama by calling him a "wise enemy." One posting on a chat room expressed admiration for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "wearing a head scarf ... and she and Obama taking off their shoes" during a visit to Cairo's Sultan Hassan mosque.


Mohammed Zakarneh, a 33-year-old former fugitive militant in the West Bank town of Jenin, said Obama's speech "planted seeds of hope in our hearts, as Arabs and Muslims."




In Egypt, Shahinda al-Bahgouri, a 20-year-old student at Cairo University where Obama spoke, was also impressed.


"All we want as Muslims is for there to be a partnership," she said. "And he was seriously humble. Humility is important for us."


In Syria, political analyst Imad Shouaibi said: "It is a speech with a different language from what we used to hear. This is a positive thing."
Sheik Muhammad al-Nujaimi, member of the committee in charge of rehabilitating Saudi militants, said he is going to tell the militants Muslims should offer help to the new American administration and reciprocate its overtures.


"Americans are a civilized people. The previous president didn't represent them. Today, there's a new president who's using a new language and wants a new world in place. We should give him a chance and not open up a new front that will lead to the failure of his plan."
Zahid Husain Gardezi, a 50-year-old landowner in the Pakistani city of Multan, was pleased by Obama's warmth.
"It is the first time I have ever heard such affectionate words from an American for Muslims," he said."


Arab satellite stations Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, as well as Egyptian TV broadcast the speech live, with a voice-over Arabic translation.
Lebanese Hezbollah officials said they didn't watch Obama's speech although the group's Al-Manar TV carried it live. The station's newscast described it as "historic" _ a rare acknowledgment from a mouthpiece of the militant Shiite group. But the approval was tinged with criticism, saying Obama spoke to the Muslim world more like a "preacher" and did not distance himself from the pro-Israeli lobbyists.


Mohammed Ali, 40, a Shiite cleric from Najaf, was reassured by Obama that the U.S. is committed to getting out of Iraq.


"Listening to Obama's speech, I became more assured that the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Iraq will be implemented and that the new U.S. administration is committed to help Iraq," he said.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/04/obama-arab-world-speech-e_n_211565.html


Sometimes, words matter.

Yeah, I think it is lip service. We will see what actual real impact it has.

So the suicide bombers will stop now?

Well, I've always said the opinion of a muslim extremist is the only one that matters.

Well, I've always said the opinion of a muslim extremist is the only one that matters.

So, who cares what you've always said, then? :cool:

Muslim extremists.

There are 2 things going on:
1 - Obama isn't displaying total unconditional surrender to Israel,
2 - The Taliban managed to fuck themselves in Pakistan.

In response to #1, the Israeli press and some Americans are attacking Obama speeches and influence in the Middle East. The bush administration used a stick to threaten those "darkies squatting on our oil," and it appears that a carrot is a better motivator. But, the bush derangement squad hates all things Democrat (which is why the bush administration intentionally allowed NK to get nuclear weapons, see "Rolling Blunder (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html)" for more details on how hating all things Clinton screwed the pooch).

In response to #2, this is happening at the same time the Muslims are turning away from AQ/Taliban/extremists. From this morning's news trawling: And until recently, many thought that the Taliban would lead the way to this promised land.

Or at least create a replica at home.

For a long time the Taliban presented themselves as the lost link to a pure past, a conduit to a simple life and eternal salvation.

Only four weeks ago most Urdu television channels were acting as cheerleaders for the Taliban.

Most Urdu columnists in newspapers were presenting the Pakistani Taliban as the reincarnation of early Muslim warriors.

Change of heart

Now in a rare consensus they are all clamouring for an all-out war against them.

Even the people who were sitting on the fence - or considered the Taliban a localised problem - have suddenly realised that actually the Taliban are out to destroy their way of life.

Every single opinion poll carried out in Pakistan has concluded that the country is a hotbed of anti-Americanism.

But now, faced with a war against the Taliban, the nation seems to have united behind the most American of slogans: they are threatening our way of life.

How did we change our minds so quickly?

More than the government or the media, it is the Pakistani Taliban who are responsible.

This collective change of heart can be traced back to a two-minute flogging video that made headlines around the world.

Everyone knew that the Taliban flog and behead people, and when they want to show their softer side they just shoot them or slice off their ears. But nobody had seen them at work.

A young girl's screams

In this video men in regulation Taliban dress and beards are holding down a young girl and methodically whipping her.

The girl screams. She asks for forgiveness.

It is never clear what her crime is.

One of the men in the video tells the other one to hold down the girl firmly.

This series of images had more impact on the people's psyche than a thousand theological debates raging on television.

For the first time a young girl's screams silenced the Taliban cheerleaders.
Then the Taliban leaders, in a series of interviews, have been outlining their roadmap for the nation on television.

It was not just the Swat valley they wanted to purge of evils like schools, music, democracy, barbers and the judiciary.

If it was good for Swat, it should be good for the rest of the country.

And later they wanted to impose the same model on the rest of the world. They demanded that the government give them arms to carry out their mission.

It was a spectacular public relations disaster.

{snip}

Many Urdu columnists still go to great lengths to explain that the Taliban came close to establishing a model Islamic state in Afghanistan - or that the Pakistani Taliban are not real Taliban, but Indian agents.

There is a set of gory pictures circulating on the internet claiming to support this argument.

The pictures show mutilated bodies of alleged Taliban, with their trousers pulled down to reveal their uncircumcised privates.

So they are clearly not Muslims, is the message.

And it is supposed to convince us that the Taliban are actually not a product of Pakistan's dangerous drift towards religious violence but a conspiracy hatched against us by Indians, Israelis and, of course, Americans. Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8085680.stm) Sections underlined for emphasis.

Their anger at the Taliban now outweighs even their frustration with the military campaign that has crushed their houses and killed their relatives.

"It's the Taliban that's responsible for our misery," said Fakir Muhammed, a refugee from Swat, who, like many who had experienced Taliban rule firsthand, welcomed the military campaign to push the insurgents out.
The growing support for the fight against the Taliban could be an important turning point for Pakistan, whose divisions about its Islamic militancy seemed at times to imperil the state itself.

{snip}

On Wednesday, in an audiotape, Osama bin Laden specifically cited the fighting in Swat and Pakistan's tribal areas, blaming the Obama administration for the campaign and for sowing "new seeds to increase hatred and revenge on America."

{snip}

Even so, anti-American feelings still run high in Pakistan. Many Pakistanis blame the United States and the war in Afghanistan for their current troubles.

Pakistanis have long supported the Taliban as allies to exert influence in neighboring Afghanistan. Unlike Afghans, they have never lived under Taliban rule, and have been slow to absorb its dangers.

{snip}

Daily life became degrading. A woman was lashed in public, and a video of her writhing in pain and begging for mercy stirred wide outrage. Taliban bosses ordered people to donate money. Cosmetics shops and girls' schools were burned.

By the time the military entered Swat last month, local people began leading soldiers to tunnels with weapons and Taliban hiding places in hotels, the military said. "These people, six months back, weren't willing to share anything," said a military official who was involved in planning the campaign. "Gradually they've been coming out more and more into the open."

{snip}

But the underlying causes that have allowed the Taliban to spread — poverty, barely functioning government, lack of upward mobility in society — remain.

{snip}

He was from a charity run by Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the principal religious parties that tacitly support the Taliban, and was directing a frenzied effort to distribute water and hand-held fans.
The government, meanwhile, was nowhere in sight. Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/world/asia/05refugees.html)

As I stated in the title, it would be smarter to call the extremists "takfiri" instead of "jihadists" as the j-word has positive connotations in the Muslim world (and complements bush's incredibly terrible blunder where he originally call us "crusaders"), while "takfiri" is closer to what the extremists are actually doing, and explicitly forbidden by the Koran.


Some other links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8059900.stm
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-05-voa32.cfm
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/war-room/obama-cairo-speech-060409
http://pakistanpolicy.com/2009/05/26/book-review-seeds-of-terror-how-how-heroin-is-bankrolling-the-taliban-and-al-qaeda-by-gretchen-peters/