Via Moacir and thanks to the SMU digital collection, A Pocket Guide to Egypt, 1943.
Democracy is a free, open way of life that is threatened by a system of oppression. That's why we're in this war.
Democracy is built on the right of free choice - the right of man to worship God in his own manner. Respect the Moslem's right to do exactly that; don't do anything that he thinks defiles his religion or his temples.
Democracy believes in people seeking happiness through their own way of life, with their own customs - not forcing them to adopt the system of life of a stronger nation. Respect the Egyptian's customs as outlined in this book.
Democracy doesn't believe in the "super-race" idea. But our beliefs will be judged by what we do.
II.
So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.
That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. ---
President Obama, Cairo Speech.
Also, fun:
Do not even get a Moslem to touchpigskin leather, or any pobject that has touched a pig or pork. (Note, if you think this is a joke, remember hundreds of white women and children died because of such a belief. See history books on the Indian Mutiny and "greased cartridges.")
Also, relevant: Iran.
Here's the video of the speech: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/31101164#31101164
President Obama "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone......" And the reality as per Andrew Bacevich "As a direct result, it leads us to exaggerate the importance of places like Afghanistan and indeed to exaggerate the jihadist threat, which falls well short of being existential. It induces flights of fancy so that otherwise sensible people conjure up visions of providing clean water, functioning schools, and good governance to Afghanistan's 40,000 villages, with expectations of thereby winning Afghan hearts and minds. It causes people to ignore considerations of cost. With the Long War already this nation's second most expensive conflict, trailing only World War II, and with the federal government projecting trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, how much can we afford and where is the money coming from? " http://amconmag.com/article/2009/may/18/00020/
Here is Ivan Eland "Unfortunately, Obama is not the only person in the United States who fails to understand this key cause of anti-U.S. terrorism originating from the Islamic world. The foreign policy establishment — both Democratic and Republican elements — believes that the United States must solve all of the Islamic/Arab world's problems to turn things around there. For example, the establishment New York Times, in a news article on Obama's Cairo speech, pontificated: For Mr. Obama to win favor… he needs to address the challenges facing the Arab world, from poverty and inadequate education systems to limits on democracy and human rights. That is exactly wrong and a complete misunderstanding of the roots of the basic problem. The imperial mentality of solving all such problems got the United States into its current riff with the Islamic world. To get rid of this dangerous source of friction, the United States should just stop meddling in that part of the world." http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2009/06/04/obama-versus-osama/
III. So let it be known and let it be written: Democracy is simply a system of Rules for playing the game (Read: Uncle Sam's rules & ballgame), which allows some cosmetic measures of elections and participation in the Muslim countries. The folks in the Muslim countries are NOT exactly our slaves but nonetheless QURBANI KAA BAKRAS. To paraphrase Robert Fisk: “And of course, when an Muslim bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on [Uncle Sam & stooges], we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer. Chomsky says this a bit differently: Let's come closer to home. Take, say the Western Hemisphere. Where is the worst atrocity in the Western Hemisphere? Well, it happens to be Colombia. Colombia is the worst human rights violator in the hemisphere. Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, and the church, and everyone have tons of material on it. The atrocities are being carried out by the military forces and their paramilitary associates at a horrible scale. They get half -- about half of US military aid and training for the hemisphere … So, there's another one we can handle. And we could run through the world and find quite a number of cases where we could actually bring about security without doing much at all, just by withdrawing -- It's a little bit like asking how could the Russians -- in pre-Gorbachev days, how could they have helped security in Central Asia? Well, one way they could have helped security is by withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan that would have helped security. Well, we're a global power, so we're all over the place, and there are a lot of things of this sort that we could do.
Here is Alexander Cockburn's insight "There are fine words. There are facts on the ground, and they often strayed far from each other in Obama's big speech. One 1000-pound bomb or remote-controlled drone trumps 10,000 words on rhetoric about peace. For his next address on this theme let me offer a very inspiring illustration of inter-confessional tolerance at work in a great cause. Around 930 AD the dowager Queen Toda of Navarre, a Christian, appealed to the caliphate in Cordoba, beseeching 'Abd al-Rahman III to help her slim down her son Sancho I, who had been abandoned by his subjects in Navarre because he was too fat to ride a horse and thus unable to display himself properly as a kingly warrior. The caliph sent word he had this terrific Jewish doctor and promptly dispatched to Navarre his top court physician, a Jew called Hasday b Shaprut. The Shaprut Diet did the trick. A year later Sancho was back on the throne. E pluribus unum; i.e., out of many, many pounds emerged one thinned down Sancho. A Christian, a Muslim and a Jew, working together. But that was a thousand years ago and the reconquista of Al-Andalus was already under way, with the Crusades waiting in the wings. " http://www.chapatimystery.com/archives/cockburn06052009.html and on the funny side Onion also chimes in http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_drastically_scales_back?utm_source=a-section