How Not To Win Over the Muslim World

1. Send soldiers into Iraq and Afghanistan with rifles engraved with Bible codes that reference passages of the New Testament. You know, so that extremists have real justification for claiming that this is a Holy War. Crusades anyone? Even the Afghan military were given these Bible guns. The Pentagon arms supplier Trijicon claims it has always used New Testament references on its products. Soon after ABC broke the story, Trijicon agreed to stop. But is the damage already done? See Al Jazeera English coverage for more.

2. Hire private security in Iraq from a company whose boss is now being accused by two of his ex-employees of viewing himself “as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.” There are also claims that Erik Prince, head of Blackwater, “openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as ‘ragheads’ or ‘hajis’.

Whether or not those accusations are true, thousands of documents show Blackwater guards routinely opened fire in Iraq’s streets, then left the scene without aiding civilian casualties.

3. To top it all off, it surely doesn’t help that the proposed ban on burqas is receiving strong public support in France. I’m all for finding ways to target sexist discrimination, oppression and general misogyny. But we have plenty of that in our western society, even if it’s not as obvious to us as a woman dressed head to toe in black. Sarcozy may think he’s being idealistic, but in reality he is misguided. If he wants to address issues of racism and sexism in French society, there are plenty of places he can start that don’t involve singling out a religious minority that already faces heavy discrimination and difficulty assimilating.

Ex-President George W. Bush once said that the Muslim extremists “hate us for our freedom”. Looking over these headlines, one begins to wonder if some hate us because we won’t give them theirs.