Comments: Talking to the enemy

The problem with American policymakers is that they want other people to “look like them, talk like them, walk like them [Anglo-Saxon Americans]” while at the same time enslaving other people and not practicing what they preach.
Roberto, US

 

I wonder why Islam is always the misunderstood religion by many.
Nebiha, Ethiopia

 

It all seems so simple and clear, yet American policymakers just cannot seem to grasp it. It gladdens me to see that Esposito of Georgetown, where I am a student, is a voice for reason. 

 

How can your message and Esposito’s message are disseminated amid all the bias and misinformation in the American media and realm of public discussion? 

John Ryan, US

 

I think most Americans would rather see Muslims rule the Arab world, without our intervention.

 

I think George Bush would also prefer this to losing our soldiers’ lives. We would like to work together to resolve terrorism, however, we will not have innocent civilians attacked, and neither should the Arab world.

 

We all agree that human life is too precious. We do need to have our military and intelligence services work with yours, as Saudi Arabia and Jordan are doing.

David Cantril, US

 

What the US is doing in the Middle East and with Islam is just what we’ve been doing for decades if not longer with Communism and nationalist movements in Asia, Latin America, and indeed, the whole world. 

So the US is generally confused about the rest of the world, and our foreign policy is the result: violent yet conquering nothing.

Christopher Rushlau, US

 

Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti has written a very interesting article but I am surprised by his ending. America and the West should “help Muslims overcome this painful metamorphosis, and to minimise intervention in this transitional process”.

What is this?

Is not this an illustration of the impact and influence of a Western mindset upon a Muslim who has been exposed too long?

The problem is the West. The problem is that contact with the alien culture of the West and its facade of humanism and so-called democracy is more like a cancer that not only will spread but will destroy the body that it occupies.

Jerry Copeland, US

 

It is strange that America is supposed to support freedom of religion; they practice that inside America, but outside the borders it appears not.

D Jermano, China