June 4, 2009
Obama calls for 'new beginning' between U.S. and Muslims
by Christi Parsons and Mark Silva
Los Angeles Times
President Obama, calling for "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,'' said in a long-promised and widely watched address from Cairo today that the "cycle of suspicion and discord must end.''
Obama acknowledged the mistrust that the West and Muslim nations hold for one another: The "fear and mistrust'' in the United States stemming from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, carried out by "violent extremists" and the alienation of Muslim nations bred by "colonialism'' and "sweeping change.''
"Whatever we think of the past,'' the president said to a theater audience frequently applauding his repeated appeals for mutual understanding, "we must not be prisoners to it.''
The American president, born of a Muslim father from Kenya and white mother from Kansas and raised for part of his childhood in Indonesia, flatly declared that the U.S. is "not at war with Islam.''
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