Do We Want Them To Like or Respect Us?

You know instinctively I have never bought the fact that we had to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street. We keep hearing about how we are in a battle for the Muslims hearts and minds.

After investigating the Koran issue for hours yesterday I looked up from my computer and realized that the Muslim faith is so specific as to it's requirements specifically related to acceptance of others that it leaves no room for compromise - for example even the exchange of knowledge of another religion is forbidden:

Question

I wanted to give a copy of a translation of the meanings of the Qur’aan to a kaafir man, but he said “I will not take it unless you take from me a copy of the Bible in Arabic, and I will not read it unless you read [the Bible].” Should I do that or not?

Answer

He should not do that, because the Bible may have an effect on the Muslim, but it seems that the Qur’aan will not have an effect on this evil person, because he is insisting that the Muslim should take the copy of the Bible.

Last night The Insanity that is Colmes (Hannity and Colmes) had a former CIA interrogator on and he made the most common sense and logically intelligent comment I have heard on this subject.

He said:

I don't think we can win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world, but we CAN win their respect and that is what we are doing in Iraq!

Based on what I had read about Islam and it's inability to accept others I know in my heart that he is correct. I forgot his name, he had been on Fox before. I will check for a transcript later and link if I can find it.

The key is that we we will never be liked - it will never happen! We can't even get our own liberals or media to like the US, how are we going to get Arabs to like us! But we can get them to respect us and we can do that by having our actions match our words, being tough where we need to be (without fear), and helping them achieve freedom and democracy!
DKK