Report from Oman
I'm in Oman at the invitation of the US Department of State to give a talk on innovation and entrepreneurship at a conference sponsored by the national incubator here.
I thought I'd drop you all a quick note of hello on the topic of US involvement over here in the Middle East.
In Oman, which is a quiet, ultra-safe US-allied piece of desert run by an enlightened monarchic Sultan (promotes women's rights, some freedom of speech, etc.), there is little activity of note. There is little US presence here. Rumsfeld was supposedly just here, but there was almost no mention of it in the press.
I have found no 'anti-American sentiment' expressed toward me. Sir Alan Munro, former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who is a fellow speaker at this conference, and a wonderful guy who sounds like Alec Guiness and I think is of the same generation, told me a couple of interesting things:
- Dissatisfaction with "westernization" is growing in the more progressive areas in the Gulf (e.g. Dubai). He says he hears biting words, cast in anti-American language, in the sermons in the more rural Mosques even in Dubai (which, I'm told, is beginning to look like an Arab Singapore).
- He has met a number of middle ranking US officers on airplanes as he has flown around the region, and he characterized them as being "very loyal" but "very frustrated" at what the US is doing here. "What's the point?" they would ask. They are "not happy bunnies" in his words.
- A young westerner here who were recently in nearby Qatar said she ran into many US soldiers there. She relayed to me seeing a group of soldiers in Starbucks looking very sad. She spoke to them and was overwhelmed by the things they said "We came over here hoping to do something good", they said, "to strike a blow for freedom". "What we found was nothing like what we expected". "Its horrible". One of the men broke down crying on her shoulder, there in Starbucks.
Its a very sad situation.
I thought I'd drop you all a quick note of hello on the topic of US involvement over here in the Middle East.
In Oman, which is a quiet, ultra-safe US-allied piece of desert run by an enlightened monarchic Sultan (promotes women's rights, some freedom of speech, etc.), there is little activity of note. There is little US presence here. Rumsfeld was supposedly just here, but there was almost no mention of it in the press.
I have found no 'anti-American sentiment' expressed toward me. Sir Alan Munro, former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who is a fellow speaker at this conference, and a wonderful guy who sounds like Alec Guiness and I think is of the same generation, told me a couple of interesting things:
- Dissatisfaction with "westernization" is growing in the more progressive areas in the Gulf (e.g. Dubai). He says he hears biting words, cast in anti-American language, in the sermons in the more rural Mosques even in Dubai (which, I'm told, is beginning to look like an Arab Singapore).
- He has met a number of middle ranking US officers on airplanes as he has flown around the region, and he characterized them as being "very loyal" but "very frustrated" at what the US is doing here. "What's the point?" they would ask. They are "not happy bunnies" in his words.
- A young westerner here who were recently in nearby Qatar said she ran into many US soldiers there. She relayed to me seeing a group of soldiers in Starbucks looking very sad. She spoke to them and was overwhelmed by the things they said "We came over here hoping to do something good", they said, "to strike a blow for freedom". "What we found was nothing like what we expected". "Its horrible". One of the men broke down crying on her shoulder, there in Starbucks.
Its a very sad situation.
posted by Tim Rowe at 11:34 AM
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