MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 6/05:

With much press fanfare (they just love to play to the cameras) leaders of half a dozen Muslim American groups held a press conference gathering across from the State Department today. The ones who came together are a few of the "client organizations" we've at times commented upon. Today's gathering brought together the most conservative and establishment types, the ones that get their directions, monies, and marching orders one way or another from the Arab "client regimes" in the Middle East.

After loud and repeated promises that they were finally going to seriously protest against U.S. policies supporting Israel, and after repeatedly saying they were going to engage in civil disobedience and get arrested, and after repeatedly indicating that they were going to hold their ground and make a stand as long as it took...well...it was all over in little more than an hour actually.

After sitting down in the street for a few minutes, with plenty of police helping them out it seemed, the organization heads got tired pretty quickly, played to the cameras one more time, and then said that no they were not going to try to enter the building, no they were not going to sit down anywhere there was actually traffic, and yes they were going to call it a day and come back on Friday outside the White House (and play to the cameras once again of course).

Talk about credibility!

And oh yes, one thoughtful reporter from Reuters asked the group whether they now thought they were wrong for endorsing Bush/Cheney in the last election as after all they were now just a few months later in front of the State Department protesting and announcing a campaign of civil disobedience. It was a small dramatic moment actually, but then up to the microphone came Mr. Alamoudi -- the senior Saudi-sponsored guy among this collection of organizational types -- who had previously declined to make any comments when he had been called on by the mc. And Alamoudi took the opportunity to proudly announce that indeed they had gotten 80% of Muslim Americans to vote for Bush/Cheney, but they shouldn't be taken for granted.

Talk about misleading the Muslim community!

Talk about fronting for the Arab petrol regimes!

Oh yes, almost forgot. Not a word was said outside the State Department today about the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people at the hands of U.S. and Israeli policy-makers. Not a word about the hundreds of thousands of deaths and the historic "sanctions" which senior U.N. officials have protested as "genocidal" in their impact. To speak up about the terrible human carnage brought about in Iraq by those who define and impliment U.S. foreign policy at the American State Department -- and about today's ongoing "sanctions", "no fly zones", and CIA plots -- well that wouldn't make very good picture bites back in Saudi Arabia and other Arab capitals where these Muslim client organizational types get their allowances. Talk about hypocrisy!

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/6/231.htm