President Obama speaks to the Muslim world
President Obama has been planning to give this speech for quite some time, since well before he won the election in November and moved into the White House. He has made it very clear he wants a new beginning with the Muslim world and he said as much in his speech in Cairo, Egypt. From NPR:
Pledging “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world” – and quoting from the Quran, the Talmud and the Bible – President Obama reached out to the world’s 1.5 billion followers of Islam Thursday, addressing an appreciative crowd at Cairo University.
Here is a portion of the speech President Obama just finished in Cairo. You can read the entire text at NPR.
Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.
So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.
I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
I don’t have a problem with our President reaching out to the rest of the world, especially to those who seem to have a problem with everything our country does or tries to do in our foreign policy. I do wish he would take a little less apologetic tone and stop laying most of the blame at the feet of America.
Have there been mistakes made in what we have attempted to do? Most certainly yes, but we are not to blame for everything that is going wrong in the Muslim world and in the Middle East. They have been fighting among themselves for centuries and they will probably continue to do so long after we have left the region.
The speech touched on several topics, one of which was the continued struggle between Israel and the Palestinians. President Obama has been well known for taking a considerably tougher stance towards Israel than did many of his predecessors, but I was encouraged to see him making it very plain to the Palestinians that they have to abandon violence if they expect a two-state solution to the problem to ever be implemented.
It should be noted that the leaders of the extremist Muslim factions are doing their best to play hardball with our new President. Osama bin Laden has released a new audio tape accusing Obama of stoking hatred towards the United States by telling Pakistan they need to crack down on the Taliban.
There is no doubt there are good, well-intentioned members of the Muslim world who want no part of the violence that seems to intrude into every part of the Muslim society. I would hope President Obama would make it clear that we have no problem with those Muslims, but I hope he also makes it very clear that we do have a major disagreement with Muslims such as Osama bin Laden and groups such as the Taliban. No matter how just they believe their cause is, they need to be removed from the equation. Until that is done, peace can not be expected to come to fruition.
I don’t have a problem with Mr. Obama reaching out to the rest of the world, either. He does, however, need to quit blaming his own country, America, for all the world’s problems. The last time I checked, it wasn’t us who flew planes into the towers on 9/11; it was a bunch of radical extremists – terrorists – who wanted to kill thousands of people in a show of fierce terror.
It seems the president is more interested in pleasing others ahead of his own people.
Pastor Ron’s last blog post..Too Funny! Golden Pipes
I would tend to agree, Ron. President Obama does seem to be going out of his way to blame the United States for everything he can think of. It’s one thing to be critical of the policies of a previous administration, but to go on foreign soil and criticize our country like he is doing is uncalled for.
I’d be interested to hear specific instances from his speech yesterday in which he criticized the United States or the Bush adminstration. I recall him saying the war in Iraq was a “war of choice” as opposed to the war in Aghanistan which dealt with a specific enemy charged with responsibility for 9/11. I also recall him saying the US, in recent years, had gotten away from some of our basic principles and he vowed to end any acts of torture and to close Guatanamo. Are any of those statements false? Together those three things took about 30 seconds of his one hour speech. I’m not sure there are any other instances in which he criticized our country. Can you be more specific?