CreedFeed Community - Militants Surround EU Offices in Gaza Over 'Offensive' Cartoons

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Last week, mobs of protesters jammed the streets in Damascus, Syria, setting fire to the Danish and Norwegian diplomatic missions in anger over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, which is banned under Islamic law. Protests in other Islamic countries targeted European facilities and Arab Christians. They are enraged that Western leniency toward expression would allow the cartoons to be published.

Protesters feel Western civilization is insulting Islam. Their claim is hypocrisy, propelled by those wishing to explain away many social problems in the Islamic world under the guise of victimization by the West. Many Islamic governments, especially Iran and Syria, encourage anti-Western and anti-American images, including the toleration of belittling other religions in their own societies.

Governmental control of expression in many Islamic countries is a necessity to power. They channel frustrations of their poverty-stricken and disenfranchised populations from their own rule and blame others. They also kindle the passions of their citizens against the West in order to release the frustrations of being desperate for a better life and to maintain support from Islamic fundamentalists.

The embassy burnings are an example of how the Syrian government used the cartoon issue for its own political ends — a common tactic to mislead the citizenry.

While teaching politics at the University of Jordan last year, I realized my Jordanian and Palestinian students did not know that the 1993 U.S.-led Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, which is 100 percent Muslim, was a humanitarian aid mission conducted after more than 300,000 Somalis died due to famine and war.

The students were surprised that I lost my legs as result of a land mine explosion while conducting humanitarian relief work in Somalia. I told them I was a credit union training officer funded by the U.S. government, which was simply interested in helping Somalis re-start their lives. It was hard for them to believe that the U.S. aided a Muslim society despite no geo-strategic objective or plot to control an Islamic country, as they were led to believe.

The real story is rarely told in the Islamic world.

Many Muslims do not know that over the past 15 years, American foreign policy has saved hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives. U.S. policies can lay claim to protecting more Muslims from death than any other government.

In 1991, U.S.-led Operation Desert Shield protected Saudi Arabia from Iraq-occupied Kuwait. In 1992, Operation Provide Comfort saved and protected tens of thousands of Kurds, who are Muslims, from Saddam Hussein's helicopter gunships, war planes and chemical weapons. Later, U.S. missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia primarily benefited the Balkan region's Muslim population. These stories are rarely told in the Islamic world.

While working in Bosnia in the late '90s, my job was to help the war disabled, many of them Muslims, recover from injuries and reintegrate into society. Much of the reconstruction funding for the Muslim-controlled areas of Bosnia originated with the U.S.

In contrast, funds from Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, were mainly funneled to build mosques. This story is rarely told in the Islamic world.

Current operations and projects in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine are also bringing democratic opportunity to millions. The U.S. remains one of the largest bilateral donors to the Palestinians, and the American-led World Bank gives more money per capita to Palestine than any other nation. This story is rarely told in the Islamic world.

In May, while giving a speech in Syria, many Syrians told me privately how they yearned to live in the "free" U.S. They could not publicly express their true feelings toward the U.S., they said, because there is no freedom in Syria. My Arab students in Jordan told me, "We appreciate the U.S. and its principles."

Many of my American students were unaware of foreign cultures and international events before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But as a result of that tragedy, I can now see from both my Missouri and Jordan students a willingness to understand other cultures and appreciate freedom. I am grateful that freedom's torch will be in secure hands when it is eventually passed to today's youth — if they are given the opportunity.

Ken Rutherford is associate professor of political science at Missouri State University. He taught politics at the University of Jordan in spring 2005.