From BBC News Online, Kuwait:
Kuwaitis watch Arab satellite TV channels beamed in from across the Middle East. In recent weeks, most of the output has made for uncomfortable viewing in a nation which stands almost alone in the region in its active support for the US-led war in Iraq. One Arab channel recently aired a film montage of air strikes on Baghdad, dead civilians, distraught survivors, and British soldiers storming Iraqi homes. Particularly gruesome sequences were run in slow motion and repeated. The film was accompanied by a doleful ‘cello solo. Such coverage of the war a few miles to the north has enraged many Kuwaitis. Al-Arabiya, based in Dubai, has reportedly been told its operation in the emirate might be closed down by the authorities if it does not remedy alleged “bias” in its war reports. “Some Arab channels are not showing the good, they do not show when the Americans bring help to the Iraqi people. They show just one side,” says Balqis Aziz, who joined up to 2,000 other Kuwaitis at an open air meeting to reaffirm their support for the efforts to unseat Saddam Hussein. […] Many Kuwaitis admit to being annoyed that little attention was given to the missiles lobbed at civilian targets in this country, further confirmation in their eyes that the war against Saddam Hussein is just.
However, not is all well in Kuwait:
[…] not all Kuwaitis are so happy to be a closely allied with the US. Local newspapers have quoted one Islamic charity worker who fears the real aim of the war is to “flood” the region with western values and culture. Already, affluent Kuwaiti teens appear to be drawn more to McDonald’s than to Mecca. However, leading Muslim cleric Mohammed Hagif Al-Mutairi – a fierce opponent of innovations such as female suffrage – says he is confident the American influence is “limited” and that Kuwait’s social and religious traditions can be maintained.
Not when the two–“American influence” (freedom and its results) and “religious traditions” (theocratic totalitarianism) explicitly contradict each other.
[…] “America’s support for Israel is disturbing. How can America liberate Iraqi people on one side and support the denying Palestinians of freedom on the other? This contradiction needs to be resolved. But oppression in Palestine is no excuse for oppression in Iraq.” [BBC News, “Kuwaitis in no mood to be labelled poodles”, 2003/04/04]
Perhaps this is because Palestine is the oppressor–after all are they not in bed with Saddam? After all who funds there suicide missions?