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LETTERS: MUSLIMS DIDN'T BLOODY THOSE BORDERS FIRST<br><br>Washington Post, 12/10/02 - Letter to the Editor:<br><br>Charles Krauthammer should be congratulated for dismissing as absurd the question of whether Islam is inherently violent [op-ed, Dec. 6]. Unfortunately, he did not consider the history of Islam's "bloody borders." If they are bloody, it is because, over the past 200 years, they have been repeatedly violated by outsiders who sought to dominate Muslim people and appropriate their resources.<br><br>It was not Chechens who invaded and conquered Russia, nor did the Afghans, the Egyptians or the Pakistanis ever invade Britain. No Palestinians ever took over any Jewish villages in Russia, Poland or Germany. The Iranian secret police backed no military coups against Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the Egyptians did not conspire with the Colombians to reconquer the Panama Canal. No Arab corporations covet oil in Texas or Alaska; Arab forces do not maintain bases in Europe or North America; Arab aid has never supported military dictators in Spain, Peru or Cuba.<br><br>The notion that Muslim alienation is rooted in an obsession with recovering the glory of Islam's medieval golden age -- and is thus entirely "their" problem -- is ludicrous. The sorry history of modern Western intrusion into the Middle East is far more relevant to our current crisis, whatever Mr. Krauthammer and the rest of the neoconservative punditry would have us believe.<br><br>STEVE VINSON<br>New Paltz, N.Y.<br>
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