The expression “the Arab Street” is misleading. It’s the regional equivalent of Main Street USA, and just as imprecise.

That doesn’t stop journalists and pundits from trying to distill a sense of what the average Arab is thinking about an issue — even though the Arab Street begins in Morocco (or Dearborn, Michigan, for that matter) and extends east all the way to Yemen and Oman.

Actually, I live on a street on the Arabian Peninsula, so I suppose I come from the Arab Street, at this moment, too.

So, in the wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, what is the Arab Street saying?

That’s what The National attempted to do for this morning’s newspaper … get a reading on what the typical Arab was saying about Bin Laden the day after he was killed.

The opinions are all over the map, not surprisingly … but what comes through is a sense of doubt about the truth of U.S. accounts of what happened. Which is no surprise. This is a region in which a significant number of people believe the 9/11 attacks never happened, in which people are skeptical of everything every government tells them, actually.

One point that is jarring, though, is the whole “we want to see his body” complaint. Two problems with this.

1. Displaying a body would not end the “you haven’t proved he’s dead” issue. It would just shift to “that wasn’t him; that was a wax figure” … etc.

2. The way bodies are handled is a serious topic in the Muslim world. Desecrating the dead, not disposing of them in the proper fashion, and within a narrow time frame … these are very serious issues that U.S. officials seem to have taken into account. Attempts to display a dead Bin Laden would be met with horror and disgust.

The burial at sea, whether or not you believe the time line works, makes sense. It is allowable under the tenets of Islam, it leaves no precise place of interment, it means no funeral will ever be held (and how many Arab despots wish they had never allowed public funerals over the past three months?) … and it means no grave site, and no devoted followers beating a path to it.

From this voice on the Arab Street, right there off Airport Road in Abu Dhabi … Osama Bin Laden was killed on May 1, shot in the head by U.S. special forces, who documented the event photographically (photos which will leak out eventually but also will not be believed by some), took his body to an aircraft carrier, followed Islamic law to prepare it … and sent it over the side.

It makes sense. It was do-able. It was the smartest way to handle things. But  we here on the Arab Street are predisposed not to believe any information from any government anywhere. If a president told them the sun rose in the east, they probably would get up early to make sure they were not being lied to.