Obama apology to Muslim world warrented.
Jeffrey Kuhner’s list of positive things the US had done to save, protect and improve the lives of Muslims is impressive and I’m sure incomplete (Lethal Olive Branch, 2-1-09. For instance, there was the US support of the UN’s global smallpox eradication campaign that saved more Muslims lives than all other constructive US efforts combined.
But like a father who provides important comforts for his family such noble behavior doesn’t excuse the occasion wife and child beatings that occur because he assumes he is entitled to an occasional abuse of power.
There are in fact tens of millions of Muslims who have had relatives killed, abused or permanently displaced because of both direct and indirect U.S. “aggressive diplomacy” and militarized foreign policy. Obama’s apology to them and the vast majority of Muslims to which we have meant no harm is hardly “pathetic”.
Kuhner’s refusal to consider the other long and often valid list of grievances the Muslim world has toward our nation’s actions is lethally foolish. Kuhner either forgets, never learned, or simply refuses to acknowledge our nations documented support of Saddam Hussein’s criminal mass murder of Iranians using poison gas and intelligence reports that former US Administrations helped provide. Or, the 500,000 Iraqi death toll from US enforced UN sanctions following the first Gulf war. Then there are the deaths of 90,000 innocent Iraqis and the displacement of nearly 2 million more as a direct result of our invasion of Iraq under the pretext of WMD and other stated American self interests such as ‘stabilizing’ Iraq or ensuring our access to Middle East oil.
Mr. Kuhner is wrong stating that “we know: the US does not owe the Muslim world an apology”. We owe them an apology and a lot more. And, contrary to Kuhner’s views we will need to work on our own flaws as well working with the Majority of Muslims in correcting the flaws in their political leaders that our nation has supported without question in the past.
We are not “in a war against radical Islam” as Kuhner concludes. We are in a global campaign to replace the insanity of war with the profoundly acceptable principle that helped create our own nation -- The civilized idea that ‘rule of law’ is supreme over both the ‘law of force’ or the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
President Obama may be making mistakes but his apology to the Muslim world wasn’t one of them.
But like a father who provides important comforts for his family such noble behavior doesn’t excuse the occasion wife and child beatings that occur because he assumes he is entitled to an occasional abuse of power.
There are in fact tens of millions of Muslims who have had relatives killed, abused or permanently displaced because of both direct and indirect U.S. “aggressive diplomacy” and militarized foreign policy. Obama’s apology to them and the vast majority of Muslims to which we have meant no harm is hardly “pathetic”.
Kuhner’s refusal to consider the other long and often valid list of grievances the Muslim world has toward our nation’s actions is lethally foolish. Kuhner either forgets, never learned, or simply refuses to acknowledge our nations documented support of Saddam Hussein’s criminal mass murder of Iranians using poison gas and intelligence reports that former US Administrations helped provide. Or, the 500,000 Iraqi death toll from US enforced UN sanctions following the first Gulf war. Then there are the deaths of 90,000 innocent Iraqis and the displacement of nearly 2 million more as a direct result of our invasion of Iraq under the pretext of WMD and other stated American self interests such as ‘stabilizing’ Iraq or ensuring our access to Middle East oil.
Mr. Kuhner is wrong stating that “we know: the US does not owe the Muslim world an apology”. We owe them an apology and a lot more. And, contrary to Kuhner’s views we will need to work on our own flaws as well working with the Majority of Muslims in correcting the flaws in their political leaders that our nation has supported without question in the past.
We are not “in a war against radical Islam” as Kuhner concludes. We are in a global campaign to replace the insanity of war with the profoundly acceptable principle that helped create our own nation -- The civilized idea that ‘rule of law’ is supreme over both the ‘law of force’ or the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
President Obama may be making mistakes but his apology to the Muslim world wasn’t one of them.
posted by Chuck Woolery at 1:22 PM
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