Obama tells the Muslim world "U.S. is not your enemy"

There was an article today by Paul Schemm, Associated Press, about President Obama addressing the Muslim world. Below is a copy of that article.


CAIRO, Egypt – President Barack Obama chose an Arabic-language satellite TV network for his first formal television interview as president, delivering a message Tuesday to the Muslim world that "Americans are not your enemy."
The interview taped Monday underscored Obama's commitment to repair relations with the Muslim world that have suffered under the previous administration.
The president expressed an intention to engage the Middle East immediately and his new envoy to the region, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, was expected to arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel, which is privately owned by a Saudi businessman.
Obama said the U.S. had made mistakes in the past but "that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."
During his presidency, former President George W. Bush gave several interviews to Al-Arabiya but the wars he launched in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a massive backlash against the U.S. in the Muslim world.
Al-Arabiya has scored interviews with top U.S. officials in the past, including Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The channel is seen by some in Washington as more balanced in its coverage than its Qatar-funded rival Al-Jazeera, which the previous White House administration complained had an anti-American bias.
Obama called for a new partnership with the Muslim world "based on mutual respect and mutual interest." He talked about growing up in Indonesia, the Muslim world's most populous nation, and noted that he has Muslim relatives.
The new president said he felt it was important to "get engaged right away" in the Middle East and had directed Mitchell to talk to "all the major parties involved." His administration would craft an approach after that, he said in the interview.
"What I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating," Obama told the interviewer.
The president reiterated the U.S. commitment to Israel as an ally and to its right to defend itself. But he suggested that both Israel and the Palestinians have hard choices to make.
"I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people," he said, calling for a Palestinian state that is contiguous with internal freedom of movement and can trade with neighboring countries.
On Tuesday, Gaza's fragile truce was threatened when a bomb detonated by Palestinian militants exploded next to an Israeli army patrol along the border with Gaza, killing one soldier and wounding three.
Obama also said that recent statements and messages issued by the al-Qaida terror network suggest they do not know how to deal with his new approach.
"They seem nervous," he told the interviewer. "What that tells me is that their ideas are bankrupt."
In his latest message on Jan. 14, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden said Obama had been left with a "heavy inheritance" of Bush's wars.
Shortly after the election, the network's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri used a demeaning racial term for a black American who does the bidding of whites to describe Obama.
The message suggested the terror network was worried Obama could undermine its rallying cry that the U.S. is an enemy oppressor.

Now, I have some thoughts on this article. First, I have no problem with the message that he delivered. In order to have peace in the Middle East, it is important that all parties are able to communicate with each other. But I have a major problem with the statement about former President Bush: "but the wars he launched in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a massive backlash against the U.S. in the Muslim world."

Excuse me, but I believe that 9/11 launched those wars. It was Muslim terrorists that attacked us to begin with. It was Muslim countries that harbored those terrorists. If the other Muslim countries didn't want us launching any wars to find these terrorists, then why didn't they do it themselves? And the war in Iraq? Maybe it was started for the wrong reason (WMD's anyone?), but it culminated in the deposing of a sadistic tyrannical despot who murdered thousands of his own Muslim people. So why exactly is there a backlash against the U.S.? It seems to me that after 9/11, there was a backlash against the Muslim world that could have been turned around easily if the Muslim world had been quick to police themselves first.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not advocating hate or racial prejudice against the Muslim people. God says to love your neighbors and I believe that means everybody; Muslim, Jewish and Christian alike. I won't get into the religious aspect of this, just suffice it to say that all this hatred is not what God wants. But I take offense at the liberal slant of the news that wants to throw all the country's ills back on President Bush. Yes, he made mistakes, just as President Obama will too. But stop kicking President Bush for doing what he had to do in a difficult time. Would the liberals have been happy if we had all sat around debating the thing to death after 9/11? The last time we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, we didn't debate that either. We went straight to war. That was a different type of war, so it was more clear cut than guerrilla terrorist tactics.

I hope that President Obama can disfuse the hard feelings and bring some kind of peace to the Middle East without jeopardizing our relationship with Israel. But remember, these hard feelings were brought about by the Muslim terrorists attacking us, NOT by President Bush invading Iraq or Afghanistan.