Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 84
have set new lessons for public policy practitioners and have enhanced the right of all
peoples to continue pursuing dreams. His policies reflect in a pragmatic way the
theoretical environment that I would like to have created in my own hypothetical term of
office.
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EMBERS OF FREEDOM.
While the growth of freedom took gigantic strides in the 1980s in most of the world, in
parts of the Middle East largely populated by Moslems, the power of governments over
individuals actually began growing. This was a consequence of Britain and France’s
abandonment of their imperial policies after World War II and of the Soviet Union’s
interest in this region. Because many of the liberated Middle Eastern states combined
secular with religious law, personal rights of individuals were severely curtailed.
Individual rights that we take for granted were set back by the official imposition of
Moslem Fundamentalism, which experienced a resurgence with the fall of the Shah of
Iran and the Soviet support of states such as Libya Iraq and Syria.
Our support of Israel’s theocracy exacerbated latent religious conflict in the area. During
the cold war these Arab countries were united by their alliance with the Soviet dictators,
by their socialist tendencies and by the hatred of their former colonial masters, with
whom they associated the United States. Now that the Soviet block is gone, sectors of
the Islamic population appear to be united by their contempt for us. This reality
produces consequences of such gravity that I believe we should be compelled to look
widely and deeply into its causes. When the question of why some of these people hate
America so much as to declare it its public enemy is asked, we must try to find the
answers honestly.
One inescapable problem to be resolved under America’s leadership is the Palestinian
issue. The failure of peace pact after peace pact proves to me that this is a problem that
will never be settled by the warring parties themselves, regardless of how much pious
expressions of hope are expressed by U.S. government officials. First, the Israelis and
the Palestinians alone did not create it, and second, the entanglements of that war
reach up to the highest political and economic circles in Washington, New York, Tel
Aviv and many other centers of power. These interests have too much at stake for any
settlement to occur in the vacuum of their presence. Only the United States government
has enough clout to catalyze a lasting accord among all these groups. An enduring and
necessary way to reduce this hatred, and the inevitable terrorism that it spawns, is to
stop the massive abuse to which the Palestinians are subjected, or if not within our
means to do so, at least to not be an accomplice to its perpetuation. To stand idle while
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