Words that could heal wounds of centuries

Robert Fisk
"For a man who is sending thousands more US troops into Afghanistan - a certain disaster-to-come in the eyes of Arabs and Westerners - there was something brazen about all this. When he talked about the debt that all Westerners owed to Islam - the "light of learning" in Andalusia, algebra, the magnetic compass, religious tolerance, it was like a cat being gently stroked before a visit to the vet. And the vet, of course, lectured the Muslims on the dangers of extremism, on "cycles of suspicion and discord" - even if America and Islam shared "common principles" which turned out to be "justice, progress and the dignity of all human beings"."
Zmag