Posted on 09/27/2005 11:34:30 AM PDT by echoBoomer
To listen to most of our foreign-policy commentators, the biggest problem facing America today--four years after Sept. 11th--is the fact that many Muslims are mad at us.
"Whatever one's views on the [Iraq] war," writes a New York Times columnist, "thoughtful Americans need to consider . . . the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world." In response to Abu Ghraib, Ted Kennedy lamented, "We have become the most hated nation in the world, as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." Muslim anger over America's support of Israel, we are told, is a major cause of anti-American terrorism.
We face, these commentators say, a crisis of "Muslim opinion." We must, they say, win the "hearts and minds" of angry Muslims by heaping public affection on Islam, by shutting down Guantanamo, by being more "evenhanded" between free Israel and the terrorist Palestinian Authority--and certainly by avoiding any new military action in the Muslim world. If we fail to win over "Muslim opinion," we are told, we will drive even more to become terrorists.
All of this evades one blatant truth: the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved. Consider the issue of treatment of POWs. Many Muslims are up in arms about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantanamo--many of whom were captured on battlefields trying to kill Americans. Yet these same Muslims are silent about the summary convictions and torture--real torture, with electric drills and vats of acid--that are official policy and daily practice throughout the Middle East...
(Excerpt) Read more at aynrand.org ...
When in actuality one of the biggest problems facing America today is the fact that many American politicians are convinced that it's possible to win over Muslims "hearts and minds."
It isn't.
Muslims were born angry and having fits, and no single thing has ever been the thing to set them off. They are full of violence and hatred. It is no wonder that "every man's hand" is against them. They do nothing to cause themselves to be loved or respected.
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