Author: Thomas L. Friedman
Publication: The New York Times
Date: November 27, 2002
To: Leaders of the Muslim world
From: President George W. Bush
Dear Sirs,
As you approach the end of Ramadan
and we approach our Thanksgiving, I thought it would be a good time for
me to share with you some concerns. Let me be blunt: I am increasingly
worried that we are heading toward a civilizational war.
How so? Well, let me point out just
a few news stories in recent days: Imam Samudra, the Indonesian Islamist
accused of masterminding last month's Bali bombing - in which nearly 200
tourists were killed - reportedly said during his confession that it was
a "holy bomb" that ripped apart that disco, and that it was aimed there
because it was full of foreigners - i.e., non-Muslims. There is nothing
"holy" about a bomb that kills 200 people just because they are foreigners.
Then I read about Bonnie Penner,
a young U.S. missionary nurse at a prenatal clinic in Sidon, Lebanon, which
provided care for needy Palestinians and Lebanese. She was shot three times
in the face. A Palestinian security official told The A.P. that "the killing
was the result of a hostile Muslim reaction in Sidon to the preaching .
. . lessons the center was giving to Muslim youths." Do you know how much
proselytizing Muslim groups do in America? A lot. We have no problem with
that. That's who we are. Who are you? I have no idea whether this woman's
clinic was involved in proselytizing Muslims, but I do know that she was
a nurse, caring for Muslims, and she was shot for who she was.
Then there was Azmi Abu Hilayel,
whose son Na'el strapped himself with dynamite and blew up an Israeli bus
with school kids. Azmi was quoted as saying: "I thanked God when I heard
that my son had died in an operation for the sake of God and the homeland."
I can't believe that the God of Islam, a God of mercy and compassion, would
bless killing anyone's kids. Believe me, I know Israeli soldiers have killed
dozens of Palestinian children during the intifada. That is shameful. But
I don't hear Israeli generals, parents or rabbis thanking God their sons
could kill Muslim kids. Soldiers shooting kids is wrong. Suicide killing
is wrong. There is no God that blesses either.
On top of all this, we just had
the imam of a Paris mosque arrested for allegedly helping the airplane
shoe-bomber. And we had two U.S. marines shot in Kuwait, a country we helped
rescue from Saddam, and we saw one of our top aid officials in Jordan killed
in his front yard for a similar "crime" - being an American in the Muslim
world. Now you see why I ordered that young men from most Arab countries
who are studying in America be fingerprinted and photographed by the I.N.S.
I had no choice.
You say all this is happening because
we support Israel. I know we need to do more to bring peace, but I don't
think that nurse was shot, or that Bali bomb was made "holy," because we
support Israel. I think it has to do with the rise within your midst of
a deeply intolerant strain of Islam that is not simply a reaction to Israel,
but is a response to your failing states, squandered oil wealth, broken
ideologies (Nasserism) and generations of autocracy and illiteracy. Armed
and angry, this harsh fundamentalism now seems to totally intimidate Muslim
moderates.
But the values it propagates will
bring ruin to you and conflict with us. As Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute
wrote in National Review, "No faith will make rote memorization of ancient
texts, suppression of critical inquiry and dissent, subjugation of women,
and a servile deference to authority the recipe for anything other than
civilizational decline."
The decent, but passive, Muslim
center must go to war against this harsh fundamentalism. Yes, we have our
intolerant bigots too. I just publicly distanced myself from those Christians
who smear Islam with a broad brush. But our moderate majority and press
regularly denounce them too. They are not dominating our society. We've
had our civil war against intolerance. Now I'm urging you to have yours.
Don't tell me you can't. Look at those courageous Iranian students who
are now taking on the extreme fundamentalists within their own society
- risking their lives to fight those who want to take Islam, and Iran,
back to the Dark Ages. God bless them.
Friends, unless you have a war within
your civilization, there is going to be a war between our civilizations.
We're just one more 9/11 away from that. So let's dedicate this next year
to fighting intolerance within so we can preserve our relations between.
Sincerely, G.W.B.
