I agree with Tim Montgomerie on AmericaInTheWorld, Charles Krauthammer's brilliant recent article in The Washington Post deserves to be widely read. It is a response to President Obama's controversial interview with Al Arabiya, where he directly addressed a global Muslim audience, calling for the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago", and his inaugural address where he declared to Muslims that "we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
Krauthammer rightly points out that Obama's statements were overly defensive and apologetic. As he writes in his piece:
"In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The two Balkan interventions -- as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims (43 Americans were killed) -- were humanitarian exercises of the highest order, there being no significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?"
The United States should be proud of its record of freeing tens of millions of Muslims from tyranny, and bravely, Great Britain has played a major role alongside her in doing so.