Somebody Should Do Something About All the Problems

"Where is the Muslim Martin Luther King? Where is the “Million Muslim March” under the banner: 'No Shiites, No Sunnis: We are all children of the Prophet Muhammad.'”

-The New York Times' Thomas Friedman from the column "Martin Luther Al-King?", published January 24, 2007

"Why isn't anyone doing anything about all the problems? We're living in a time with super computers and underwater sea stations and million-dollar laboratories. And still, everyday when I watch the TV news shows I see all sorts of problems!"

-The Onion's Edith Heare from the column "Somebody Should Do Something About All the Problems", published August 21, 1996

Friedman is upset that Danish cartoons caused more of a public uproar in the Muslim world than the civil war in Iraq has. What Friedman fails to point out in his column, however, is why that is. With the support of the U.S. government, the authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan, etc. have squashed civil, public discourse through the Arab and Muslim world. If an Muslim MLK sprouted up, a U.S.-backed government would jail him.

Discussing the absence of leadership in the Middle East without discussing the American contribution to the problem serves to distract attention from U.S. policy failures of the past 50 years -- failures made exponentially worse by the current White House.

All I'm doing is saying.