Two sides to the story

Submitted by george p roy (United States), Oct 25, 2005 at 06:06

Dr. Pipes:
Your column has been sitting on my desktop for a while because I did not want to erase it without responding to it. Your facts are undoubtedly correct but you are looking at the terrible world we live in only from one perspective and as such you are doing a disservice to your readers.

What about the state terrorism perpetrated by the Europeans, Americans and Israelis over the last century? How many Arab/Muslims have been killed in the middle east by these powers for oil; to redress their own history of anti-semitism or to expand by ethnic cleansing their own state? The US has supported autocratic dictatorial regimes in the middle east when it serves our purposes; we have tolerated and supported these regimes in spite of their vicious treatment of the people under their control for our own political and economic purposes. As such we lack any credibility in the region.

The Arab/Mulims learned from us how to use violence to achieve their goals. The US has been in the forefront of killing middle easterners since the end of WWII. Can there be any surprise when they decide to strike back on their own terms?

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