Thursday, May 11, 2006

First Call for the Crusades! First Call!

Iranian President Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to Bush earlier this week that has been getting more than a little attention--it's not often that letters between heads of state who do not have diplomatic relations with one another become public.
 
I'd like to point out two of the last paragraphs:
"Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity.  Today these two concepts have failed.  Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.
 
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point--that is the Almighty God.  Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems.  My question for you is: 'Do you not want to join them?'"
President Ahmadinejad, I don't think you mean it this way, but it sounds like you are asking President Bush to jump on the band-wagon for the middle ages.  You are a teacher, and a student of history, so I'm sure you realize that these were times of staggeringly low life-expectancies; high infant-mortality rates; plagues and diseases swept from Portugal to China; the rule of law had not existed for over 1000 years, and instead we had autocratic rule of man.  Basically, it sounds as if you are asking the President of the country that has helped shape a world where there is greater access to opportunity for more people than in the history of the world to reject that structure, that opportunity, and revert to the system that gave us the Crusades.

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