On Obama's travels to Mideast and Europe, he should leave the apologies behind
A toothbrush, TelePrompTer and the nuclear football -- they are the essentials for a traveling President. But as Barack Obama packs for this week's historic trip to the Mideast and Europe, there is something he definitely ought to leave at home: grating apologies for America's past.
None is needed. Genuine pride in representing America will do just fine.
Our nation has no peer in liberating people from the grip of tyranny, especially in the regions Obama will visit. That's a fact of history and the President of the United States ought to take every opportunity to say so.
He certainly could say it in Egypt, where he plans to give what he called a "message about how the United States can change for the better its relationship with the Muslim world."
That's a worthy goal, as long as he includes that, thanks to America and Western allies, tens of millions of Muslims, from Bosnia to Kuwait and Iraq, are free from the rule of genocidal maniacs and dictators.
Given his father's background and his middle name, Obama would be boldly teaching inconvenient truths by detailing each of those recent involvements. He can stress that, too often, Muslims have oppressed and killed each other and needed help from America. For Muslims, it's not a pretty history, but it is what it is.
He could also talk about why he is sending 21,000 additional troops to free Afghanistan from Islamic extremists and why he is slowly withdrawing troops from Iraq, which still needs us to protect its people.
He absolutely must talk about the growing threat of the Taliban in nuclear-armed Pakistan and what America is doing to help that fragile democracy.
He'll want to assure his audience that Iran's quest for nukes is a threat not only to Israel, but to the entire region. He'll want to persuade the Muslim world that it has a vital stake in blocking the mad mullahs' path to the bomb.
He should point out that America has kept open its doors and hearts to Muslims, even though the deadliest attack in our history was carried out by 19 Muslims. He can make the point with the contrast that, during his stop in Saudi Arabia, as a non-Muslim, he was not permitted even to set foot in Islam's two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.
He can say loudly and clearly that President Bush conceded it was a mistake to use the word "crusade" to describe the war on terror immediately after 9/11.
Obama can dispel other corroding myths, such as the one that after the attacks, thousands of Muslims were willy-nilly thrown into American jails. He can and must draw the distinction between the criminal abuses committed by some U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib, and the authorized, life-saving interrogation used on a few fanatical killers at Guantanamo.