Obama to Arabs: We Are Not Your Enemy

President Barrack H. Obama chose Al-Arabiya, an Arabic satellite TV network, for his first formal TV interview as President. I guess Fox News was busy that day. And he also announced that he had sent former senator George Mitchell (of the baseball steriods investigation fame) to the middle east as his personal envoy. Apparently, there was some concern that performance-enhancing drugs may be giving the terrorists an unfair advantage.

Ok, two quick things...

1. How many muslims do you think watched this, slapped their heads and said, "Now he tells me!"?

2. How come President Obama can trot out his muslim heritage to suit his purposes, but when anyone else wants to talk about it, that's racist?

But back to the interview:

I'm all for talking with the leaders of the Islamic world, and perhaps more importantly, reaching out to the people of the Middle east; but I am afraid it will do little good and only make us appear weak in their eyes. Then they will all treat us like the house of Saud does, they will extend us the hand of friendship while their other hand is doling out oil money to the Wahabbis.

We support Israel, as we should. The Arab world hates Israel with a passion few of us can even fathom. It doesn't matter what we do or say, as long as we support Israel, the Muslim "street" will hate us too (even if their goverments play nice because of the money or favors we'll give them). It's not about Arabs being subhuman or us being imperialist dogs...it's about a blood feud that goes back thousands of years that we picked a side in.

As for how I feel about the situation, I know many wonderful, kind and patriotic muslim Americans. But they aren't in the middle east anymore, where every woe is blamed on the great satan. I know generalizations aren't fair, but I have a hard time getting these images out of my mind...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWYOO1oNmDU

3000 or so of our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, wives, and children dead in moments (many muslims among them, btw)...and they danced and passed out candy. Someone remind me...why is it we who are coming with hat in hand?

Nolanbuck