Suggested Obama speech draft: Response to Muslim rioting over Quran-burning

My fellow Americans…tonight I’d like to talk with you -- AND at the same time address the entire Muslim world…on recent events that have grave implications, not only for peaceful international relations…but in fact for the civilization we have so carefully built in the West for the last five centuries.

I refer to the Muslim fury, now in its fifth day, at the burning of their holy book. It is appalling and repulsive to the rational mind, this furor over a book, and I call upon all Muslims who believe that theirs is a religion of peace to join with me and ALL civilized people to demand an immediate end to these demonstrations.

I now realize that Speaker Gingrich was right. THEY should apologize to US for the murder and mayhem – two things that Muslims seem to be very good at – that have accompanied these latest perceived offenses.

To Muslims I say: we are sick and tired of your one-way touchiness. You regularly burn our flags. You burn our Presidents in effigy. You never apologize.

Tolerance is a one-way street with Muslims, and that stance will no longer be acceptable to America. We will speak out emphatically against Muslim intolerance. If American lives and property are endangered by these demonstrations, we will respond accordingly.

But I don’t want matters to escalate, and that is why I call for an end to the violence. There have been over 30 deaths over this, and only two were American. Enough, I say to Muslims everywhere: enough.

And I also say this: we are a free country, and if someone wants to burn a book, be it Shakespeare or the Quran, he or she is free to do so. We as a society – and I personally – do not condone book-burning. But free speech comes first.

All religions say they are religions of peace. All have their share of violent fanatics. There are enough such people on all sides, but especially Muslims…to keep the world in a constant state of turmoil. This is why religion is such a clear and present danger to the future of humanity.

Religious people fail to understand that only THEY have to respect their holy books. The rest of us do not.

[PAUSE]

I look at the newspaper pictures of the shouting faces of young men, probably unemployed and full of anger, which their clerics cleverly redirect at the West. I feel sorry for those poor puppets who are incited to violence over the burning of a book. A book! I look at those shouting faces, and I see the demonic and total mind-control of which religion is capable.

So no, President Karzai, and all of you who cling to and revere barbaric medieval books: I will not apologize. Americans can burn the Quran or not, as they choose.

It is you, the shouting faces in the pictures and the cynical clerics who pull their strings, who should apologize…for your failure to transcend the 8th century in your thinking, for failing to join the modern world, for ignoring (or even rejecting) modernity and living by the psychotic fantasy you call a religion, for doing nothing, until very recently, to depose the regimes that keep you in poverty.

The Muslim world should join the 21st century. They should, but they probably will not – not when they riot over books and cartoons. If they want to wallow in tribal warfare, that’s their business. But the rest of the world must be allowed to live in peace and to progress as best it can. The vision of a Muslim world must be abandoned.

[PAUSE]

Once again, I deplore the violence over perceived slights. To Muslims, I say: Many religions, including Jews and early Christians, have endured far worse and survived. If your religion is truly strong, it will survive a little book burning.

End this violence now. And keep your religion in your homes and houses of worship…and off the streets and out of government.

And, my fellow Americans, I leave you with these words from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.”

As never before, the disease of religion threatens the very existence of humanity. People who become violent at the burning of a book are capable of flying planes into buildings and committing all manner of mayhem.

America stands on the side of science and reason. It is these, and not religion, that have always created -- and always will create -- a better life on earth.

I call on all peaceful and moderate Muslims to speak and act against the book-burning violence and to isolate and condemn their murderous brothers.

If you cannot control them, then we will have to do so, by whatever measures are necessary. We cannot allow Muslim barbarism and violence to govern our lives. We know that the battle against religious orthodoxy, fundamentalism, and fanaticism is a fight for civilization itself.

Thank you…and may America live long and prosper.