What will they remember? What do I remember?

Submitted by Jeff (United States), Feb 28, 2012 at 13:26

I recently saw a Syrian who looked in the TV camera and asked, "Where are you?" The assumption, of course, is that we should be in Syria, fighting on his side, fighting and dying for him. Of course, he was presented very sympathetically on the US network news.

Well, sir, considering you danced in the streets on September 11, and considering you marched in the streets yelling "our blood and our souls for you, o Saddam" during the run up to the Iraq war, my answer is, I'm home, and plan on staying there. I have a memory, too, and it's more accurate than yours.

No matter the outcome, the USA will be blamed either for entering Syria's civil war, or for staying out of it, depending on what we do. The USA will be blamed for Assad's atrocities in any case, with the usual charge that we "prop up dictators," even though we did not put Assad in power, have never supported him or his father, and went years without even an ambassador in Syria until our supine President recently assigned one there. No Muslim will remember the identities of those who actually do prop up this dictator: Iran, Russia and China.

Kuwaitis publicly said that Hurricane Katrina was Allah's punishment for the USA. So much for their powers of memory. Iraqis hate us for removing their wonderful dictator. No Muslim remembers what we did in Kosovo or Bosnia.

Afghans riot and murder over the inadvertent burning of a few korans but are disinclined to protest the ongoing murders of their Syrian Muslim brothers. Egyptians are concerned enough about Christians to burn down their churches and neighborhoods, and drive on sidewalks to run them down, but seem relatively unconcerned about the ongoing murder of their Syrian Muslim brothers. But the USA is supposed to jump in and do something?

Muslims will simply create whatever story of history they like, and we'll be blamed no matter what. So lets do nothing and spend nothing. At least the blame will be free of cost this time.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".