US fails to win over Muslims, Frank Gardner, BBC, 12 September 2003
The words of President Bush, on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary, made winning the War on Terror central to his presidency. “By removing the tyrants who support terror, and by ending the hopelessness that feeds terror, we are helping the people of the Middle East, and we’re strengthening the security of America.”
But the Pentagon’s military victories have been undermined by continued attacks by terrorists, on both soldiers and civilians. Depressingly for the West, they elicit only limited sympathy in the Arab and Muslim world, where American policies are often seen as arrogant and imperialistic.
“I think that everything the American Administration has done in the Arab world since 9/11 has been tragic,” said Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, a US Muslim convert who has advised the White House on Islam.
“I think probably the most tragic element of this is that the moral capital the American had after 9/11 was extraordinary, unprecedented I think in the world, the sympathy that people had towards them and all of it has been squandered.”
Like many Muslims, Sheikh Hamza strongly opposed the US-led bombing of Baghdad and Kabul. He believes it has helped turn many people away from America and into the arms of extremists.
In Washington though, the State Department is all too aware of this - embarking on a global programme to reach out to Muslims and convince them that America does not wish them harm. But with US troops now more firmly planted in the Middle East than ever before, such initiatives are falling on deaf ears.
“They basically treat Muslims and they treat the Islamic world as someone to be manipulated and controlled and not really as a partner, someone to have a dialogue with,” explained Professor Marc Lynch at Williams College in Massachusetts.
“They’re not particularly interested in what Muslims actually say and what Muslims actually think and I think Muslims perceive that and understand that and have become angrier and angrier at not being taken seriously.”
For moderate Arabs, this is intensely frustrating.
Jamal Khashojji is the media adviser to the Saudi ambassador in London. As a former journalist, he can understand why Bin Laden appeals to so many.
"Osama Bin Laden is presented to some of the Arabs and the Muslims as a man who can deliver and represent the anger into an action and not in words.
“Of course it is our duty, of moderate Muslims and moderate Arabs to say to the Arab world that it is ok to be angry at a state for their siding for the Israelis but we must get this anger a civilised in the appropriate way.”
So where does this leave Britain?
In the eyes of many Arabs, Tony Blair’s support for President Bush’s War on Terror makes this country equally to blame for the sufferings of Muslims.
But Sir Derek Plumbley, Britain’s outgoing ambassador to Riyadh, says such criticism is not fair.
“In the efforts we have made both in the Balkans and then more recently in Afghanistan, in relation to Iraq, the attempt to give impetus to the peace process on Palestine,” explained Sir Derek.
“All of these have at their heart the interests of Muslim communities, people in the Islamic world, and they are shared interests with Arab countries, interests on which we consult very closely with the governments of those countries.”
But somebody else is appealing to the hearts of Muslims and this week his familiar voice was heard again.
Osama Bin Laden is apparently back, appearing on video for the first time in nearly two years.
The tape aired by Qatar’s al-Jazeera television came with a message from al-Qaeda’s leadership: Americans should prepare themselves for punishment - the battle has only just begun.
Boy you take the internet real seriously. Anyway. fortunately, the French and the Canadians aren’t stupid and refused to get into the Iraq conflict without the ok from the UN. Fotunately also, the Americans are suffering from their stupidity in Iraq right now.