Reaching Out To Touch Someone

THE CENTURION CHRONICLE
Special Issue – Jun 2009

REACHING OUT TO TOUCH SOMEONE
(only works….when someone reaches back)

President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo to the Moslem world will do little to bank the fires of Islamist extremism and hatred for our country.

If anything, the apologetic and mea culpa tone of that speech may simply harden and validate the extremists’ views about America. They are quite likely to interpret it as a sign of weakness rather than an honest effort at conciliation; and, use it to tell the so-called moderates of that world: “See…the Americans admit to the error of their ways. So…our way of dealing with them is the only right way to do so.”

I’ve said it before. They don’t hate us only because of our governments’ policies. That’s just an excuse to justify their violence against us. They simply hate us because of who and what we are. Our polyglot, poly-cultural, wide open, free-wheeling society is anathema to them, because it shows how pitifully constrained and barren their societies are. So they hate us for that most of all, and, so long as they remain ensnared in the tentacles of xenophobic and theocratic absolutism, they will never be capable of accepting us as we are.

Thus, most efforts on our part to reach out to them won’t work. Not until they are ready to reach back to us with amity instead of hatred. Until then, our best policy for dealing with them is with an – arms’ length – approach. Closer, for those who make an effort to accommodate with us, more distantly for those who….don’t.

Well, upon reflection, perhaps the President was really trying to make a point and send them a message – America is always ready to be your friend, but, as it has clearly demonstrated to you, it military claws and fangs can and will rip you to shreds if you reject its friendship….and attack it instead.

We can only hope the world of Islam has finally gotten that message.

CENTURION