Real Talking Points for Annapolis Conference

Middle East peace efforts are underway once again in Annapolis. Colonel Oliver North has a column that brings up five key points that the State Department could use to motivate moderate Muslims.

1. Radical leaders like Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah’s Sheik Nasrallah, and Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh are not in any hurry to become martyrs (think John Cleese in Monty Python’s Life of Brian). These cowards run and hide when danger rears its head while their followers are left to blow themselves up.

2. While jihadists may be experts at building bombs out of spare parts, they cannot build anything that would actually increase their country’s standard of living. The ones driving out the infidels are the destroyers. The “infidels” they seek to drive out are the ones building their infrastructure.

3. Instead of vilifying the U.S., Mid East leaders should show their countrymen that America has brought freedom and opportunity to millions worldwide. Christianity, Judaism, and liberty is not a threat to Islam, only to the power of the radical Islamists.

4.  These radical regimes and terror kingpins keep their populations poor and illiterate so that they will buy the anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda that keeps them in power. A proper education, not in madrassas, but in math, science, and such would help young Muslims become productive members of society.

5. Muslim women need rights. They are not allowed to have bank accounts, cell phones, participate in political debates, or vote. Just recently, a Saudi court upheld a decision to give a woman 200 lashes for being the victim of a gang rape (about 75% of the Muslim female prison population are rape victims). These radical Islamic courts treat girls as young as nine as adults, stone women to death for adultery, and permit female genital mutilation. Women aren’t even allowed to purchase cucumbers at a market, because Shariah law deems cucumbers as male vegetables (tomatoes are female, in case you were wondering).  Women are not permitted in higher education, and even the availability of their medical care is limited.

Realistically, there has been peace talk after peace talk, with no success. These leaders will not willingly cede their oppressive hold over their people. As the colonel points out, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas have in fact condemned the conference and its goals. They do not desire peace. Their regimes can survive against the odds because they turn their population’s anger at the “infidels” of Israel and the West. Our state department should use this great opportunity to reach out and touch moderate Muslims.

©COPYRIGHT 2007 UNTO THE BREACH MEDIA