American Jeans As Harbinger of Peace?

[J Bananas]

What the diplomats and politicians can't accomplish, perhaps teen fashion will. Anti-American sentiment may be running rampant in the Middle East, but Middle Eastern teens are buying American clothes. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Tween Brands has started opening Limited Too stores in the Middle East, including 5 in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia and birthplace of al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden. With a Kuwaiti partner, Limited Too operates 19 stores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates with more planned.

We've seen it happen before. American jeans fascinated Soviet teens, leading to an increasing appreciation of Western culture despite the cold war. It's a little hard to push the "Evil American" line when your country's youth are clamoring for American brands. Limited Too caters to girls ages 7 to 14, an age when Middle Eastern girls typically wear jeans and shirts on the street. Older teens and women wear full-length coverups and head scarves in public, but may wear whatever they want with friends and family.

American clothing is well-made and has an undeniable coolness factor. Fashion may represent only a toe-hold of changing attitudes, but it is a beginning. The Middle East is slowly embracing western ideas. Music, fashion and fast food are the front runners of change. The younger generation that embraces them will be more disposed to other western ideas in the future. Change is coming to the Middle East. Slowly, surely, unstoppable. Today it's American jeans; tomorrow it may be detente with Israel.

[AndrE16686]

Fa sho, like the Marshall Plan during the Cold War, the US pumped millions into Europe to rebuild the economy and promote consumerism so people would be less prone to communist thought. Just as  Joseph Herzl the founder of Zionism had a vision of Jews in Palestine winning over their Arab neighbours by bringing with them a prosperous economy and raising the living standards of the Arab.


But the thing is the US can saturate the Middle East as much as it likes with it's glorious culture, but even if the kids are rockin Nikes and clad in the finest threads this won't help if they can see an Iraeli or US bomb smothering their cousin's apartment through their Gucci sunglasses.

What the US is doing now is on the right track, they are building a huge embassy in Baghdad thats gonna have malls and threatres, it will be a beacon of consumerism. But it may be too little too late. The problem with Iraq was that after the US invaded the Iraqi economy stopped, fuel stopped flowing, the electricity went out, etc. They should of quickly cut the head from the snake, replaced it with a new head (by this I mean buy over the Iraqi military and government and just kill Saddam), then flooded the country with US products, food, media and kept the economy running. Fuck going out and throwing stones at US soldiers kiddies, watch Seinfeld!
But people stopped working (markets got bombed), fathers stopped bringing home the bacon and so anarchy began. 

Prosperity is the best safeguard against revolution, a lesson as old as Rome.

[7even]

I don't know if it's true, but I've heard that the US has never been declared war upon by a country that had a Mc Donald's lol, yay yay. But how about not being imperialistic assholes anymore, how's that for a start?

[Don Rizzle]

I don't know if it's true, but I've heard that the US has never been declared war upon by a country that had a Mc Donald's lol, yay yay. But how about not being imperialistic assholes anymore, how's that for a start?

i actually heard it was america has never declared on a country that has a mcdonalds

[7even]

I don't know if it's true, but I've heard that the US has never been declared war upon by a country that had a Mc Donald's lol, yay yay. But how about not being imperialistic assholes anymore, how's that for a start?

i actually heard it was america has never declared on a country that has a mcdonalds

Ahmadinejad better know what to do then