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America's Standing in the Muslim World

(New York Times) Thomas L. Friedman - If the fact that American soldiers have risked their lives to save the Muslims of Bosnia, the Muslims of Kuwait, the Muslims of Somalia, the Muslims of Afghanistan, and the Muslims of Iraq has earned the U.S. only the false accusation of being "anti-Muslim," trust me, U.S. troops passing out bottled water and Pop-Tarts in Indonesia are not going to erase that lie. If you throw in the Oslo peace process, U.S. foreign policy for the last 15 years has been dominated by an effort to save Muslims from tyrannies, mostly their own theocratic or autocratic regimes. It clearly has not made much of an impression. I believe the tensions between us and the Muslim world stem primarily from the conditions under which many Muslims live, not what we do. I believe free people, living under freely elected governments, with a free press and with economies and education systems that enable their young people to achieve their full potential, don't spend a lot of time thinking about who to hate, who to blame, and who to lash out at.
2005-01-17 00:00:00
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