My good friend and great Kentucky basketball fan, Dawood Kahn, has lived in the Middle East and visited all over the region for many years and is an intelligent, if a little rough around the edges in his language, analyst of the people. He speaks his mind.
Essentially I hear that the people we empower in our republic consistently take actions which alienate the people of the world as do certain Christians.
Sam,
I don't think that people around the world hate Americans or America or Christians.
What they hate is some of the actions of the American Government and the words and deeds of many Christians.
There are many Christians who run around burning Qu'rans or Books of Mormon or telling those who do not believe in Christianity (Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Agnostics, Mormons, Atheists) that they are going to hell for their belief systems. It's not only that. You have Christians who believe that their particular brand of Christianity is correct and that all others are wrong. Therefore, only they are going to heaven and all others are going to burn in hell. Christians are almost always oblivious to how much anger and resentment they create with their arrogance.
The Federal Government has a horrible record in the Middle East.
We enthroned the Shah in Iran. BIG MISTAKE.
We aided in the consolidation of power for the House of Saud. HUGE MISTAKE.
We have been funneling billions with a CAPITAL "B" to Mubarak for 3 decades. GARGANTUAN MISTAKE.
We subsidize the existence of Israel. Though, I'm a pro-Israel person, I have to wonder when they will be able to stand on their own. If they can never stand on their own, are they a viable nation? If a Nation can not exist on it's own, is it indeed a nation and not simply a welfare state extension of another stronger State.
How long do we support Israel in this manner? ETERNALLY???
We screwed the pooch on Israel. When we hosted the Camp David Accords, we had Sadat by the balls. He knew that he'd lost that war. Yet, Israel was willing to give him what he wanted in exchange for recognition and peace. We should have forced Egypt to take in all of the Palestinians. Mass exodus. They could have lived with Yassar Arafat in his gay lookin' pink house in the Sinai.
We have fought our wars there in a half assed manner. Instead of going in and massacring the bastards, scaring war out of their systems (like we did finally in the South during the War between the States and with Germany and Japan in WWII), we go in half assed and attempt to be their buddies. We want to win hearts and minds. Instead, we should be putting the fear of GOD (any God will do) into them and letting them know that we don't care about World Opinion. We care that you attacked us or are standing in the way of something that we want.
GO IN HARD! BEAT THE HELL OUT OF THEM. Make them desire peace.
Instead, we skipped into Afghanistan as if the whole world was our peach. We went in hard in Iraq and then screwed it up by firing the whole of the Army and Police Forces. The only security apparatus that was viable. Those same guys decided that if America didn't want them, they didn't want America and turned into an insurgency. Bremer is the GREATEST ASS on the planet. Bremer is the author of the insurgency. The father of the Iraqi Insurgency. Bremer was a gift to al Qaeda. He was manna from heaven for Osama bin Laden.
We assisted Saddam Hussein in invading Iran and conducting a 10 year war against Iran. It was good for us. We approved. Hell, I approved. We should have nuked Qom over the Embassy debacle.
That war ended. Saddam invaded Kuwait due to a dispute over oil boundaries.
We decided that Kuwaiti Oil and Saudi Oil was more ally than Saddam's Iraq. We should have encouraged him to attack Saudi Arabia and to do a genocidal sweep of the Nejd.
We attacked Saddam. Not one year prior to that we were shipping Arms to Saddam.
Many of the Arms used by Saddam to attack Kuwait were provided by US Military Aid.
We used the Afghans in the '80s to fight the Soviets. They were nothing but tools. "We" won. We used the Afghans to bleed the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan. We gave the Soviets their Vietnam. I loved it. Still do.
BUT
Once we had no more use for the Afghans, we pulled out and said "F--k 'em."
We didn't assist them in any way. We allowed Saudi Arabia and it's Wahhabists to fill the void.
Over the next decade, the Taliban appears out of thin Pakistan ISI air.
Are you following this...
Now, having read all of that, you tell me.
You think on it and tell me why?
Why would peoples out there in the World distrust America or think that we are a capricious and heartless people? Why would we be distrusted?
To use your question, why would they hate us?
For the most part, they don't hate Americans. Most people whom I meet out in the World absolutely love Americans and the idea of America.
They abhor American policy such as the above.
--
It is better to travel well than to arrive ~ Buddha
silkroadsandsiamesesmiles.com
I love you when you bow in your mosque,
kneel in your temple,
pray in your church.
For you and I are sons of one religion,
and it is the spirit.
Khalil Gibran
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