A good friend, who tends to lean towards the Left, and I recently got into a

heated debate about the attitude of the United States towards Islam and the rest
of the world.

The debate was sparked off by a story that began at Michigan State University
with a mechanical engineering professor named Indrek Wichman.

Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. The e-mail was in
response to the students' protest of the Danish cartoons that portrayed the
Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The group had complained the cartoons were 'hate
speech'
============
Enter Professor Wichman.
==========================================
In his e-mail, he said the following:
===============================
Dear Moslem Association,
As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU, I intend to protest your
protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings
of civilians,
cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests
(the latest in Turkey ), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution
of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the
rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called 'whores' in your culture), the
murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France
.. This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of
my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized
slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile
'protests.' If you do not like the values of the West - see the 1st Amendment -
you are free to leave.
I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option .
Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves
instead of troubling Americans.
Cordially,
I. S. Wichman
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
=============================

The above news item provoked an impassioned response from my friend, which is
reproduced below.

Hi Firoze,

This is a typical redneck right wing racist American propaganda ...

This Michigan professor seems to have a memory lapse not to remember the video
showing torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners by US troopers? As a white American,
he might have taken it as his birthright to torture and kill coloured people...
after all his great nation was built upon the mass genocide of Native Americans.

Frankly what freedom of speech is he speaking about? After bulldozing millions in

Vietnam... supporting brutal dictators like Pinochet, Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussain
and Zia... Americans like him have some cheek to talk about Human Rights!!! Even
today, Amnesty International cites the United States as the largest international
supplier of electro-shock weapons to governments that practice electro-shock
torture. $3 million worth of electro-shock devices were sold to Saudi Arabia in
1990.
Just as past American atrocities have created wars and conflicts, the current
atrocities in the Middle East and Asia, will result in more conflict, loss of
life and environmental destruction. The preparations for the war against
'terrorism' have been going on for at least 20 years. In partnership with the
Saudi ruling family, the global ruling elite has radicalized Islam through mind
control facilities disguised as religious schools. In these schools they create
the 'terrorists' needed for an enemy. Without the CIA, Saudi 'schools' and Israeli
abuse of Palestinians there simply wouldn't be a threat from Muslim 'terrorists'.
If the US had not stolen democracy from so many countries in the first place,
Muslim fundamentalism wouldn't have grown to the level it is now. Today their
hatchet men have come knocking at their doors. What goes around comes around.
Regardz.
F
This was my response.
Dear F,

There is an old adage that two wrongs do not make a right. Therefore, while it
would be unconscionable not to condemn the torture carried out by the United
States, under the euphemism of "enhanced interrogation techniques", there is merit
in the Professor's arguments too.

For someone with your Leftist leanings, it is natural and understandable that you
would highlight the obvious flaws in American diplomacy over the past few decades.
For sure, the US has made some incompetent and even disastrous diplomatic
decisions in the past. It was a standing joke in the 1980s that any tin pot
dictator of a banana republic could milk millions of dollars from the Americans by
stating that he was against Communists. The misguided Iraqi adventure, too, was
the result of one President's arrogance and messianic zeal. And it is no secret
that US administrations routinely propped up the theocratic and dictatorial regime
in Saudi Arabia to safeguard its oil supplies. As for Israel, it is true that
nation was carved out of Palestine to assuage European guilt over the Holocaust,
but that is part of history now. One does not condone some of the extreme measures
taken by Israel to suppress Palestinian dissent, but the other side of the coin is
that the Palestinians have made it their mission to harass and kill Israelis at
every opportunity,

As for the Muslim side, some of their grievances against the West and Israel may
be perfectly legitimate. That said, it certainly does not justify suicide bombings
and indiscriminate slaughter of innocent men, women and children under the guise
of jihad. Moderate Muslims do not realize how much damage they are doing to their
cause by not openly condemning the brutalities committed by their fundamentalist
brethren.

The professor may have shot his mouth off, but describing his remarks as "typical
redneck right wing racist American propaganda" is unfair.

Firoze

The debate is continuing, but in the interests of brevity, I shall stop here for
the moment. Depending on the response to this article, I will be happy to publish
the rest.

It is safe to assume that most Americans will side with my views. However, it
would be interesting to learn if my friend would find support from anybody in
America.