Yeah…we are the disrespectful ones.

During President Obama’s good will tour of Europe and parts of the Middle East, he made some rather striking comments about the U.S.’s actions and motives in the Middle East and the Muslim world in general.

When asked about relations between Israel and the Palestinians and the appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy, President Obama said, "What I told [Mitchell] is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues -- and we don't always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen."

He also went on to say that his administration would base relations with the Muslim world on “mutual respect”, something, he claimed, that past administrations did not do.

Hmm…let’s see here. Which administrations is he talking about?

He must not be referring to President Reagan who spent billions protecting the Afghans from the invading Soviet Union in the late 1970’s and through the 1980’s.

He can’t be talking about President George H.W. Bush. After all, didn’t President Bush free millions of Kuwaitis in Operation Desert Storm and provide hundreds of millions in aid to Jordanians, Egyptians and Palestinians?

How about President Clinton? Well, he can’t be referring either as he continued President Reagan’s support of Somalia, bombed European Christians to save Muslims in the Balkans, worked unsuccessfully, yet tirelessly, to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and lectured Russians about their brutal treatment of Chechnya?

Surely, he cannot be talking about President George W. Bush who freed tens of millions of Iraqis and Afghans from oppressive regimes by fostering democracy in each country, while providing incredibly generous amounts of aid for tsunami relief in Indonesia.

Not to mention the U.S.’s incredibly liberal immigration policy that allows untold numbers of Muslims to come here and become citizens.

So Mr. Obama, who are you referring to?

Perhaps he doesn’t know who he referring to. Perhaps he is so hell bent on trying to sound like the nice guy to the rest of the world that he’ll just blame us for all of the world’s ills.

If that is the case, which I suspect it is, that is not going to improve our relations with other countries. This approach will merely make it easier for the Muslim world to blame us for a litany of fictitious grievances.

I do have another question for President Obama about his “mutual respect” approach…when has the Muslim world showed us respect?

Besides blaming us for all of the world’s ills, the Muslim world has done the following to the U.S.:

November 4, 1979

Iran Hostage Crisis: The U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iraq, is seized by fundamentalist Islamic students; 52 American diplomats taken hostage and released 444 days later.

April 18, 1983

The U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, is destroyed by a suicide car bombing by Radical Islamic Jihad members; 63 killed, 120 injured.

October 23, 1983

A truck bomb is detonated near U.S. military barracks in West Beirut, Lebanon, and a second bomb follows; 241 Marines and 58 French paratroopers are killed.

September 20, 1984

A suicide bomb explodes at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon; 23 are killed and 21 injured, including U.S. and British ambassadors.

December 21, 1988

Pan Am Boeing 747 flight 103 explodes and crashes in Lockerbie, Scotland, when a bomb planted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Libyan government explodes; all 259 passengers are killed, including U.S. students and military personnel.

February 26, 1993

A rented van packed with explosives explodes in the World Trade Center’s underground garage; six people and an unborn child are killed, more than 1,040 are injured. The bomb plot includes a device designed to release cyanide gas that would kill emergency response crews and area residents, but the cyanide is destroyed in the fire.

April 14, 1993

An attempt to assassinate U.S. President George Bush in Kuwait fails.

October 4, 1993

Black Hawk Down: Two U.S. helicopters on a humanitarian mission are shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, by militants trained by Al Qaeda using weapons supplied by Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef; 18 U.S. soldiers are killed, and some of their bodies are abused and dragged through the streets.

June 25, 1996

A truck bomb is detonated outside the U.S. Air Force complex Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi Arabia; 19 U.S. servicemen are killed and 515 people are injured, including 240 U.S. citizens.

August 7, 1998

Truck bombs are detonated almost simultaneously outside two U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring more than 5,000. The attacks are carried out by 22 al Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden.

October 12, 2000

A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Cole, is rammed by a small boat loaded with explosives in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.

September 11, 2001

American Airlines flight 11, en route from Boston to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center (north tower); United Airlines flight 175, from Boston to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center (south tower); United Airlines flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco is hijacked and crashes in southwestern Pennsylvania; American Airlines flight 77, en route from Washington to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon. More than 2,900 are killed, and thousands more are injured.

Keep in mind folks, these are just the actions committed against us. There are, literally, hundreds of other terrorist activities committed by the Muslim world over the past four decades.

But we’re the ones that are disrespectful.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John