Political Quotes

“A positive signal to the Arab people and that our argument has never been with the Arab people, per se. And I hope that our participation in this coalition and, if I could move one step forward, our leadership of the coalition was not aimed against an Arab of any kind. It was aimed in favor of a principle. And that principle, again: You don't take over your neighbor by force. So, I see some demonstrations in various countries against my country, and I have a hurt about that. I guess every American loves to be loved, you know, around the world. But it doesn't work that way. And yet, I think some of the accusations by fundamentalists against us are very untrue, and I will stand up against them. But I think the message, it shouldn't be one of recrimination: ``Hey, we remember what you said; we're going to get even.'' It ought to be: ``Look, we tried to stand for what we think was decent and right. We tried to stand with respect for principles in the Arab world. We tried in the targeting of Iraq to be respectful of their culture, archeological, religious, whatever.'' And our argument isn't with Islam; our argument isn't with Arabs. And I will stand up against any discrimination against Arabs in this country publicly, openly--we've had groups in here--and say, ``Damn it, we hurt when you hurt.'' But what we stood for was something positive. And I want to keep trying in every way possible to get that message across. And it was a positive point about which many Arabs can rally. And I'm not a student of religion, but I don't find anything in what the principal teachings of Islam that put us in contradiction at all. In fact, the principles are the same as what--we have a diverse religious culture. But it's kindness, it's be good to your neighbor, it's love, and it's take care of children. It's all these things that--so there's no anti-Islam. There is no anti-Arab. Our role is trying to be positive. And when it's said to me, ``The Arab world will turn against you,'' I never believed it for a minute. And I don't have any rancor when I see some. But if they assign motives to my country that are not correct, then I'm going to fight, stand up, and say, wait a minute, you're wrong. And we've got some healing to do, but we also have some convincing to do.”