No Apologies for Obama in Cairo Speech

OF COURSE he was apologizing. If you say 'gee, I made a mistake' what naturally follows? 'I'm sorry'. How difficult is that?

If I do my utmost to hope that somehow this utterly inexperienced community organizer can reach the terrorist world, I can scrounge up a slight glimmer of hope. However, hundreds of years of history suggest that those thugs respect STRENGTH, not groveling.

Good luck to us all.

Mel of MO 9:22PM June 05, 2009

Pet of IN,

Thank you for a most informative post. Although I am familiar with the broad outline of recent history in the Middle east, there are so many nuances, unknown or totally misunderstood by most Americans. I think the simplistic explanation is that we ARE familiar with the Holocaust and its aftermath for the Jewish people. We also empathize more readily with them because they are more similar to us.

Arabs, and Muslims in general, are a tougher nut to crack. Part of that you explained extremely well; but I think another major aspect of it is their treatment of women. We still need to learn not to judge them through the prism of our own social norms. That is hard to do, but necessary if the bloodshed is ever to end.

I wish there were more folks around trying to shed some light, as you have.

Phoenician Lady of AZ 2:45PM June 05, 2009

It is not a premise that Muslims have been wronged by us in the past, including but certainly not limited to our so-called War On Terror, which is looking only slightly more successful than our War On Drugs. Your mistake is two-fold, first not actually listening to the full speech openly and critically and second, not pursuing a deeper understanding of the complexities of the situation in order to realize that the injustice began long, long before the WTC bombing, the USS Cole, or 9/11. Muslims value their identity as Muslims above their national identity. Even more importantly, Arabs eschew centralized government and believe very strongly in the central role of family and tribal authority and identity. The twentieth century saw the major world powers trample on citizens of the Middle East, India, Africa, and parts of Asia. These people's nations were exploited for resources, occupied by colonial powers, and used as the front-line in conflicts among the major European and American powers. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are both key examples of why the Muslims feel they have been victimized. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up a despised Marxist government and the CIA funneled money and weapons to the Mujaheddhin who were fighting against the Soviet occupation. We created Bin Laden's organization and used the people of Afghanistan as pawns in our conflict with the USSR. We supported Saddam's totalitarian government for similar reasons. We helped overthrow a democratically-elected government in Iran. The whole Palestinian-Israeli conflict began when the British occupiers withdrew, partitioning the land into a configuration which gave Palestinian land to European Jews, who formed mobs and private militias to terrorize the remaining Arabs and drive them into the refugee campss where their descendents still live today. The West has treated that part of the world with absolutely no respect and manipulated the region's political and economical systems for our own gain at the expense of the indigenous peoples. We continue to try to force our own values and traditions on them without their consent or consultation. The purpose of this speech was to open the door to a new era of mutual respect in which we acknowledge the rights and desires of the Muslim world, stating our intent to vigorously defend our own people and our refusal to abandon Israel while also acknowledging that our support of Israel cannot be unconditional and pledging our future support of the rights of the Palestinians. This, of course, makes pro-Israeli individuals upset because the Zionists have spent sixty years making promises they had no intent of keeping and pursuing Greater Israel through a slow process of ethnic cleansing by way of settlement-building and economic warfare through check-points and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the world's largest ghetto - a huge cage where those of inferior races are confined by "God's Chosen People."

Pete of IN 11:57AM June 05, 2009