Here's another grateful Muslim whose fat the United States pulled out of the fire in '91, but whose memory is so short and whose gratitude so scant that he rejoices in the havoc Katrina has wrought. After we delivered his country (Kuwait) from Saddam's savage invasion and restored that country's independence we get this from one of its officials.
"Oh honored gentlemen, I began to read about these winds, and I was surprised to discover that the American websites that are translated [into Arabic] are talking about the fact that that the storm Katrina is the fifth equatorial storm to strike Florida this year... and that a large part of the U.S. is subject every year to many storms that extract [a price of] dead, and completely destroy property. I said, Allah be praised, until when will these successive catastrophes strike them?
"But before I went to sleep, I opened the Koran and began to read in Surat Al-R'ad ['The Thunder' chapter], and stopped at these words [of Allah]: 'The disaster will keep striking the unbelievers for what they have done, or it will strike areas close to their territory, until the promise of Allah comes to pass, for, verily, Allah will not fail in His promise.' [Koran 13:31]."
Evidently, Muslims aren't big on "thank yous."
I wonder if this means that there'll be no economic aid from Kuwait to help defray the cost of recovery from Katrina. And we were expecting boodles of it to be offered by all those Islamic countries we've helped in the last couple of decades, too.
Someone ought to do a study of the difference between Christian benevolence to Muslims around the world, and Muslim benevolence to Christians in need. I'm sure they'd find a rough parity.
Or maybe not.