The Secrets of Arab Success

Well, not so much success. This is an excellent read of why the Arab mentality is so different than the Western ones. It should be read by the many armchair quarterbacks who are demanding that Arabs and Muslims are just like the people everywhere, especially in America.

People treat Muslims, especially Arabs, the same as Westerners, at their own peril. They think very differently than us.

Murphy's Law: The Secrets of Arab Success: "All these traits were reinforced, from the 1950s to the 1990s, by Soviet advisors. To the Russians, anything military was secret, enlisted personnel were scum, there was no functional NCO system, and everyone was paranoid about everyone else. These were not 'communist' traits, but Russian customs that had existed for centuries and were adopted by the communists to make their dictatorship more secure from rebellion. Arab dictators avidly accepted this kind of advice, but are still concerned about how rapidly the communist dictatorships all came tumbling down between 1989-91.



Such a system can produce fearsome looking armies, but not a force that can survive an encounter with well trained and led soldiers. The same techniques are applied to government and the economy, producing tyranny and backwardness that appalls Westerners, and angers the citizens of these unfortunate states. That anger has produced many reform efforts. Including such unholy horrors as al Qaeda.



Arab leaders, especially in the Persian Gulf, are generally pretty smart, and aware of what they are working with. So they hire lots of foreigners for key technical jobs. But you still have a lot of suspicious, paranoid, poorly educated and insecure people in charge. Changing all this is, understandably, difficult."