U.S. must reach out to young Muslims

Seattle Times via Baltimore Sun ^ | 3-26-2002 | By Fawaz A. Gerges

[schu]

It appears that neither the Sept. 11 attacks nor the Bush administration's public diplomacy have dented anti-American sentiments in Muslim countries. A majority of Muslims still harbor deep resentment toward the United States and its foreign policies, according to a recent Gallup Poll conducted in December and January in nine Muslim countries

[TheDon]

The survey was only useful in demonstrating how well the gov't controlled press influences the subjects of the dictatorships they live in. The author seems to have learned the wrong lesson about "Lesson 1". The reason more free societies have less anti-American feelings is that are exposed to more facts, and less gov't propaganda.

[schu]

And since these governments are dictatorships/theocracies and derive their power from maintaining the status quo, they will never voluntarily change. And because by inciting their people to blame their poor state of affairs on the “Great Satan”, we get state sponsored people blowing up our buildings.

How to fix it, because freedom and people who want to kill us like these guys do cannot coexist very well. They won't do it themselves, it will take external “forces”, military or otherwise. What we have here is a major problem, it isn’t going to be fixed soon and it isn’t going to be fixed without lots of pain and anguish.

[Michael2001]

Have you hugged a Muslim today?

[glaseatr]

They're right, we must reach out....and slap them silly.