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I really only respect the Arab culture. I ain't really trying to pay no attention to, ya know, these little people in political positions and executive positions that ain't Arab culture oriented people because a lot of the times, what are you really showing all of this concern for?

There's a good lesson for policymakers: It's not the presence of the U.S. that is a problem for many people in the Arab region; it's the type of presence we bring.

In the name of the rule of law, democracy and human rights, we cannot accept that the rights of individuals (Arab or Muslim) be trampled upon, or that populations are targeted and discriminated against in the name of the war against terrorism.

If there is something that I respect about the Arabs, it's the fact that they never change their position.

The Arab representatives and their followers were not interested in the persecuted millions throughout the world; they were fixed on a political agenda that distracted the world from their own serious shortcomings in the human-rights department.

It has never made any sense to argue that, unique among the people of the world, Arabs are more concerned on a day-to-day basis about the treatment of people they don't know than they are about how they're going to put food on their own tables, or whether their sons will ever find a job.

In the West, you have always associated the Islamic faith 100 percent with Arab culture. This in itself is a fundamentalist attitude and it is mistaken.

According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background.

How will decent people in the region ever believe in peace if Arab terrorists interpret every gesture of peace as a display of weakness and then act accordingly?