Dear Dar Al Islam,
I am privileged to be speaking to you today from Cairo’s Al Azhar University, the world renowned center of Islamic scholarship. Once upon a time, Islamic science was the envy of the world over. Islamic scholars brought knowledge and faith to Europe and Asia. Informed by their centuries old faith, the greatest minds of Islam helped transform the world with their wisdom, their belief and their intellectual curiosity.
All was well until my predecessor, responding to a random act of man caused disaster on September 11, began a relentless bombing campaign that devastated the peaceful peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan. We will never know how much ancient wisdom lies buried in Usama Bin Laden’s Tora Bora fortress of meditation and learning. Or how much knowledge was lost when US warplanes rained terror and death on the Baghdad offices of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhbarat intelligence service.
Worse than even this senseless destruction, were the lost possibilities that my country’s rash and hasty actions deprived the world of. I cannot help but think of the young men of the Taliban who will never have the chance to set foot in a classroom– and then blow it up because it is filled with young girls. I cannot help but wonder what secrets of the universe Saddam’s chemical weapons researchers might not have uncovered, had they not been brutally tortured and interrogated by American troops in Abu Ghaib.
But worst of all is the sense of alienation that has come between my people and the American people, between Muslims and non-Muslims, between the people of Cairo and Iowa, all because we have not truly listened to one another.
So I have come here with an apology. A great big apology.
I apologize first of all for our rush to judgment in the aftermath of the man-caused disaster that occurred on September 11. We may never know for certain who was behind these attacks, whether it was extremists operating out of Afghanistan and hijacking the good name of Islam to disguise their links to the CIA, or whether as my hosts have suggested, it was perhaps the Jews. We will never know.
But no attack, no amount of carnage justifies the unthinking hatred with which the American people responded to this unfortunate incident. We may never be able to fully rebuild the trust between our nations, though I hope our latest offering of billions of dollars in “security assistance” will be accepted in the degraded spirit in which it was intended.
I apologize on behalf of my nation for these war crimes which we have committed against you. Furthermore I apologize for the actions of the previous administration in falsely associating your peaceful faith with the criminal acts of renegade terrorists. Yes the previous administration repeatedly insisted that Islam is a religion of peace, and that most Muslims could not be held accountable for the acts of a small minority. But this did not go nearly far enough in distancing Muslims from terrorism.
I also apologize for our support of Israel, a policy which my administration is doing its best to terminate. I understand better than anyone else, how vital genocide and ethnic cleansing are to the Muslim faith, and that by thwarting the heartfelt desire of a billion Muslims to hold their own Holocaust, my country dealt a severe blow to your faith. I am truly sorry for that.
I must also apologize for America’s custom of free speech which has often offended the world’s Muslims. Please be assured that my administration is working hard to ensure that this curious custom never troubles you again. Free speech was a practice implemented by White Male Deists, at a barbaric time in our past when it was not yet understood, that true tolerance can only be maintain through relentless and rigorous censorship.
Finally I apologize for everything about us that offends you. Our failure to stone women to death for showing their faces in public. Our ice cream which occasionally has swirls that resemble the name Allah. Our military where men and women fight to defend America against you. Our general prosperity, which is something my administration is working to change. And most of all for our existence.
I am truly and very deeply sorry that some half a century ago, the founder of your Muslim Brotherhood came to America, was shocked and revolted by a sock hop, and decided to declare unending war upon us. I am so sorry about that and I surrender. There will be no more sock hops from now on. Also no more free speech. No more cartoons. No more wealth and prosperity. No more military. No more freedom of religion. No more anything.
From now on I pledge to help make sure that the next generation of Americans will be poor, backward, oppressed, ignorant, intolerant and terrified of the government– and of course Muslim, just like you.
Thank you for allowing me to speak before you and bow to your glorious leaders. May Allah curse America.
Yours humbly
Barack Hussein Obama
