Unrestrained Liberty Quotes
As the U. S. entered Baghdad during the Iraq War, the Information Minister continued to deny American success. This quotation illustrates a common Arab custom of greatly exaggerating military successes and grossly minimizing failures. Often, this would be done despite the fact that the people he was addressing knew full well that he was not being accurate. Every nation in military conflict tends to make minor adjustments with reality for propaganda purposes, but the Arab culture seems to do this to an extreme. In the 6 day war, the official Egyptian announcements said that they had destroyed much of the Israeli air force, at the same time that they were begging the United Nations to impose a cease fire and the Egyptians really knew that their entire air force had been destroyed and there were virtually no Israeli air losses. They also realized the world would know the truth in a day or so, yet they persisted in the absurd lie. Some scholars argue that for the Arab Culture oratory and language is poetry and describes hopes and ideals and not reality if it is unpleasant, but this theory is not universally accepted.
