In his inaugural address on January 20, President Barack Obama said, "to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect." But, without further defining " mutual respect", how can the President's remark be anything but words or a vague and indefinite platitude?
Early last December, the New York Times reported that President Obama wants to make "a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office." These signals to the Muslim world are positive. Yet, Obama faces enormous challenges in imbuing mutual respect into policy shifts, new ways of communicating, and conveying the values of this country's great people and constitution.
President Bush's "war on terror" consists of a long list of issues that damaged the image of the United States in Muslim countries over the past eight years; from his mismanagement of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to failed policies that benefited hardliners in Tehran and Washington's impotence in the Middle East peace process, particularly in the major conflicts of 2006 and 2009 between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Mutual respect is based on mutual understanding and it is imperative that the United States understands the dimension and scope of such damage. Meanwhile, the United Stats that Bush has left behind him is exactly what Robert Baer described to me in an interview recently: "The United States is like a big dinosaur with a very big tail that is going to do a lot of damage."
I recognize that President Obama's executive order to close Guantanamo, as a very positive and symbolically strong message of his intention to bring real change, has been designed to heal its image; that of a country in which torture is legal and innocent people can be imprisoned for years with no real charges, no access to legal procedures and absurd claims and bogus evidence. This image has been perpetuated millions of times in recent years in Muslim countries by their media and has formed a deep hatred against an insensitive, careless and immoral administration, from the streets of Jakarta to Universities in Cairo.
Because of last eight years of policies and acts of aggression Obama has huge hurdles to jump before he can get to establishing mutual respect and mutual understanding. You cannot just declare respect and move on, you must recognize how much damage your predecessor has done.
Closing Guantanamo could be supported by an apology for the harm and misery that thousands of people have gone through; people that hardly can come back to a normal life. President Obama has the capacity, courage, honesty and enormous support from the American people, to prove what happened in those prisons, or mistakes that harmed those people, is not a general pattern in the U.S. politics, but exceptions. He can prove that the United States respects the dignity of "others," regardless of their religion and geography and that the actions of a crazy terrorist group are not a reason for a collective brutal punishment.
President Obama's difficult job to build "mutual respect," starts now; that he should demonstrate what happened to those in detention, the extreme level of mismanagement of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the policies that have harmed the Iranian people and strengthened their radical leaders, the missiles that kill Pakistani children and its silence that permitted the death of hundreds of women and children in Gaza, and so on and so forth, are not a part of the American psyche.
Not for nuthin' (as they say where I grew up), but the above quote pretty much describes all of the members of the Organization of Islamic Countries.
And that doesn't even begin to address the myriad other issues that exist in those places with respect to freedom of religion, emancipation of women, freedom of sexual orientation, etc., etc., etc.
I find the supposition that we, the USA, or we, the West, must be perfect in these respects to earn the respect of these countires while they pay no attention to such things whatsoever to be just plain wrong. In other words, when do we require them to respect human rights before they have our respect? Or is the whole thing just a one-way street?
"It was the Supreme Leader's Special Representative though, who put it most graphically and with evident disgust. "Obama's is the hand of Satan in a new sleeve", explained Hossein Shariatmadari. "The Great Satan now has a black face". His words have weight because he speaks for Ayatollah Khamenei, the man who makes the big decisions in Iran"
Here are some pictures from Iran burning Obama's picture just like Bush's:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01243/obama_hatred_1243740c.jpg
we have to fight this war the smart way... not just dropping bombs on innocent people with the hopes of catching a couple of guys.
His words have weight because he speaks for Ayatollah Khamenei, the man who makes the big decisions in Iran.
Name one President other than President Obama that has made this kind of effort to reach out to the Islamic people around the world this early in their administration. I would say that he is actually giving respect to them, now we see if they will reciprocate.
I thnik if you ask westerners about Islam there views are far more positive than Muslims views of the west or western religions.
I suppose your right - what in God's name has he been doing all this time...
Does that mean -- and this is entirely from my perspective -- that we will agree to the marginalization of women and children in your societies? That we will look aside as young girls are mutilated, as women are beaten to death for the crime of being raped, as boys are used as prostitutes, as slavery becomes more common in the middle-classes? No. Your religion, your way of life, are not dependant upon treating women and children as chattel. Without the prop of vicious subjegation and inhumane acts, your societies will be stronger, because they will be supported by those who now wish only to escape -- or survive -- the horror of their lives.
The middle east is about to lose a valuable lever in the us-against-them mentality that our leaders have used against their people. You are going to lose us as a target for hatred. Once you cannot direct the violence that has been incubated outward -- it will turn inward. Unless you protect the less-able of your society, your world will suffer for it. Begin now. Protect your women and
Administrative costs for private policies range from 15% to 20% - Medicare is about 2%, as high as 5% by some analyses. The margin is not lining the pockets of the average American.
My parents, now on Medicare, say the only change they have seen is that they are not on the phone for hours at a time arguing with broken private insurances companies "customer service".
As for those who rant about, say, the Canadian system: I took a friend to a clinic in Canada and have seen how it works. My Canadian friends think our system is barbaric for a 'civilized' country - and they are NOT coming to the US for treatment or medication. Also, on a trip to Italy, I took an American friend to a clinic for care, and he got treated, including the exam, antibiotic, and pain med, free. He attempted to provide some compensation, but they politely refused (such gracious people).
Accessible medicine, more jobs, a better economy, a healthier nation - where's the downside?