Attacks essays

Attacks essays Franklin Delano Roosevelt and George W. Bush are presidents who faced markedly different times, economic issues and social concerns. However, they have one tragic fact in common: they were both sitting presidents when the United States experienced surprise attacks from countries or entities outside the United States. Roosevelt was President during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Bush was president on September 11, 2001, when the terrorist organization al-Queda attacked New York City and Both incidents resulted in the United States going to war with wide support from the American public, and allegations have since arisen that both presidents knew about the likelihood of the attacks before they There's no doubt that both attacks came as a complete surprise to most people. Roosevelt called the attack on Pearl Harbor a day that would live in infamy, and the immediate circumstances surrounding the attack certainly supported that view. The attack made it impossible to not declare war on Japan, and since Japan had signed an agreement with the Axis Powers, this meant we were also at war with Germany and Italy. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the great majority of American realized we had experienced a terrorist attack, which made it unclear at first just whom we should declare war on. In some ways the 2001 attack was even more outrageous to Americans than the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. In 1941, Japan had chosen military targets. In 2001, al-Queda hit only one military target which resulted in a small minority of the casualties compared to the thousands of people who died in New York City when they attacked civilian targets. By September 15th, formal opinion in the government had formed that the terrorist group al-Queda was behind the attacks as they had claimed. President Bush's administration had already made it clear that we...

Free Essays on Summer

Out of all the four seasons that we receive each year here in United States, the one that has appealed to me the most is the summer time. Why you ask? There are a lot of things to do and activities that are available for our us during summer compared to the other seasons. Plus the warm weather, the sunny days, and the long bright nights we receive during that time makes our summer time even more exciting and fun. A typical college student like me who does full time school and still manages to work 20 hours a week is a ongoing struggle and stress over the whole school year. Sleepless nights doing homework, studying and analyzing the next lesson for the next lecture, a twenty page reading every night is my daily routine, and this provides me a little over a maximum of 4 - 6 hours of sleep everyday. And this is a harsh daily routine for me until summer comes. Summer time allows me to get at least 8 hours of sleep every day for 7 days a week and that is something unheard of during this time around. With the school being out for 3 months, summer is the greatest time to catch up with sleep and rest. Something I’ve been wanting since the beginning of the semester. No homework, no studying, and yes there is no school. Typically every summer when there is no school, I always get on a 3 month vacation from my job or either leave my job if they don’t allow that. Summer is a great time to travel and explore great new places either around United States or other parts of the world. Typically I will travel around North America with my closest friends. Road trip is probably the best choice for us. Down south has the best places, Florida, New Orleans, California, Las Vegas, and Tijuana, Mexico has the best places that we visited and the most memorable. Not only vacations gives you time to yourself, It is also a great time to bond with you friends, and family. With all the time I spent in school and work, last this school year, havi... Free Essays on Summer Free Essays on Summer Out of all the four seasons that we receive each year here in United States, the one that has appealed to me the most is the summer time. Why you ask? There are a lot of things to do and activities that are available for our us during summer compared to the other seasons. Plus the warm weather, the sunny days, and the long bright nights we receive during that time makes our summer time even more exciting and fun. A typical college student like me who does full time school and still manages to work 20 hours a week is a ongoing struggle and stress over the whole school year. Sleepless nights doing homework, studying and analyzing the next lesson for the next lecture, a twenty page reading every night is my daily routine, and this provides me a little over a maximum of 4 - 6 hours of sleep everyday. And this is a harsh daily routine for me until summer comes. Summer time allows me to get at least 8 hours of sleep every day for 7 days a week and that is something unheard of during this time around. With the school being out for 3 months, summer is the greatest time to catch up with sleep and rest. Something I’ve been wanting since the beginning of the semester. No homework, no studying, and yes there is no school. Typically every summer when there is no school, I always get on a 3 month vacation from my job or either leave my job if they don’t allow that. Summer is a great time to travel and explore great new places either around United States or other parts of the world. Typically I will travel around North America with my closest friends. Road trip is probably the best choice for us. Down south has the best places, Florida, New Orleans, California, Las Vegas, and Tijuana, Mexico has the best places that we visited and the most memorable. Not only vacations gives you time to yourself, It is also a great time to bond with you friends, and family. With all the time I spent in school and work, last this school year, havi...

Review of Sources Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Review of Sources Paper - Essay Example Petroleum and geosystem engineering seek to find safer ways of extracting this valuable source of energy so as to ensure future global energy security. Petroleum geologists and engineers get to estimate and provide a description of the hydrocarbon reservoirs while also focusing on ways of exploration. This field of engineering focuses on providing an explanation on the physical behavior of water, gas, and oil within porous rock at extremely high pressure. Literature under this field explain how petroleum engineers and geologists combine their efforts to understand how petroleum reservoirs get developed and depleted. The article ‘Abiogenic origin of hydrocarbons: An historical overview’ by Glasby (84) provides an explanation as to how hydrocarbons get formed by using two theories; the Thomas Gold theory and the Russio-Ukrainain theory of petroleum formations. The Thomas Gold theory provides a strong scientific base on the formation of hydrocarbons as it does not make weak assumptions or an unscientific approach like the biogenic theory of petroleum. The Russio-Ukranian theory explains the formation of hydrocarbons from methane and how they present themselves onto the earth’s crust (Glasby 90). ... The article falls short on defining the origin of oil under the theoretical categorization of organic and inorganic nature. The article postulates the common belief that oil got formed as terrestrial vegetation that got washed and deposited into the sea where they became incorporated into the earth’s crust and mantle. Other theories have explained the formation of oil as a naturally occurring earth pigment or due to the presence of hydrocarbons in meteorites. This article appears similar to ‘Abiogenic origin of hydrocarbons: An historical overview’ as they both fail to expound on the chemical processes such as oxidation, methane reactions, and thermionic development of oil from long hydrocarbon compounds. In his book ‘Geomechanics applied to the petroleum industry’, Nauroy (62) discusses on how designing an efficient drilling program is a vital step towards the development of a gas and or oil field. The author looks at the geomechanics of rock behavio r and how it is essential in the exploitation of hydrocarbons (Nauroy 112). The author focuses on detailing how geomechanics gets applied to the petroleum industry. The book provides an insight into the methods applied by petroleum engineers in their drilling and production process of oil. The book compares to that of ‘Petroleum engineering’ which looks at the need for understanding the evolving geological aspect concerned with the earth planet. By understanding the geological aspects of the planet, it helps to provide a better basis for understanding the process of mining and drilling of oil. The author discusses the origin of petroleum engineering by providing a detailed background of the earth’s geological

Morality of a Foreign Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Morality of a Foreign Policy - Essay Example securing the good of the community and not benefitting the individual member of the society. Morality is derived from a Latin word "mores", that means custom, habit or a way of life. For an act to be moral, there are three fundamental characteristics - foremost, universal allegiance, secondly, impartiality in all the acts and lastly, the act in itself should be self-enforcing. The implication of these elements is that moral values bind everyone to these norms, and irrespective of any one, it is applied to all perspectives and interests. Lastly, it should be through voluntary actions of the persons and not forced upon by any other. Ethics is doing what is right and refrain from doing what is wrong. And the good is determined by the norms that are applicable to that particular situation. The political issues involve complex public affairs, and competing moral values and dilemmas and not simple moral verdicts. Ethical reasoning and judgments in foreign policy making involves use of relevant morals and illuminations in managing foreign relations with other states. The issues such as fairness of the international economic order, justice of the global institutions, and international regimes etc. should be guided by rules, and institutions in light of moral norms (Amstutz, 2005). The politics among nations is governed by political Realism, the phenomenon that says that the society is governed by objective laws have its roots from the human nature. Since the political systems comprises of people, therefore, the societal laws of human beings are to always prevail in these systems. Any statesman should apply rational alternatives in meeting problems under all circumstances. Morality has multiple facets to a foreign policy. Foremost, morality helps in defining goals and purposes of states and other players. No specific policy directives are given, but direction and general vision to highlight the nation's vital interests is given by the moral rules governing the foreign policy. It establishes the limits for any policy measure to be taken and acted upon. Moreover, any policy is also judged on the basis of these pre specified norms for judging the acts of the nations. A moral foreign policy should address three instruments - the conscience of decision makers, the influence of domestic opinion, and the influence of international reputation. The domestic opinion is formed by the freedom of expression of the people - as judged by the media, interest groups, and nongovernmental and professional associations; whereas, global opinion influences the international reputation of the country by labeling it as a reliable and moral actor or not. Kantian Ethics is the deontological approach talks about seeking happiness and that everyone will try to achieve pleasure and gratification to lead to the happiness, but, achieving happiness does not always fall in the purview of our powers, and it is a matter of luck. Thus, under this philosophy, evaluation of international politics actions taken might deem to be right or wrong, and not depending on the consequences. Thus, rationality is based on how a certain action is performed and not what does it result. Therefore, under this theory acts of terrorism can be favored by saying that these are the law enforcement acts, irrespective of the

In Asthmatic Children under the age of 5yrs is spacer inhaler more Essay

In Asthmatic Children under the age of 5yrs is spacer inhaler more beneficial than a nebulizer - Essay Example The recent British thoracic Society Guidelines (20) support the use of spacer inhaler over the nebulizer. The possible advantages that accrue include reduced cost of acquisition and operation, greater potential convenience and reduced incidence of infection. It is therefore very important to asses whether spacer inhalers are beneficial in children with with extremely asthmatic episodes. The above clinical question and the suggested intervention measures are relevant in clinical practice of our modern society. C- Comparison interest: indicate that nebuliser too can offer convenience depending on the prevailing situational circumstance in relation to time, cost and available staff training and level of professionalism. Search for the articles relevant for this research review was computer based. Article database search was based on the PubMed directory. An updated PubMed search (8 April 2013), with the key terms â€Å"asthma† â€Å" spacer†, â€Å"nebuliser verses spacer inhaler†, â€Å"asthma spacer inhaler†, â€Å"spacer nebuliser comparison†, â€Å"acute asthmatic children†, â€Å"or asthma with the key term limit of meta analysis, human, all children 0-5 years. This led to acquisition of 15 citations which included two systematic reviews. First search was done based in the key terms that reflect the clinical problem â€Å"asthmatic children, nebuliser verses spacer inhaler†, â€Å"acute asthmatic† and â€Å"asthma†. This directed the search towards the acquisition of many other incidences which are prevalent to the problem in question. By reading the abstracts and key terms of the first acquired article, other terms like â€Å"juvenile asthma† and â€Å"asthma spacer nebulizer†. This gave out a new dimension of the review. The new article obtained from the secondary search show a considerable compliance and correlation of the primary sources. They

Social Constructionism Theory An Analysis

Social Constructionism Theory An Analysis This short study discusses the theory of social constructionism, with special regard to its implications for social workers and how its use can help them to understand human behaviour. Social constructionism represents a sociological theory of knowledge that studies the development of various sociological phenomena in social contexts. The theory, simply put, questions widely held assumptions about inherent qualities of items, concepts, or issues, and instead brings attention to the dependence of such qualities upon the contingent rationale of our social sense. It helps us in realising that human perceptions of reality and the world, of things, concepts and ideas, are shaped by deliberate human choices and linguistic reinforcement, rather than by natural laws or divine intention. A social construct, the anchor of this theory, represents the artefact of a specific group. To illustrate, intangible words like talent or brilliance, which in the overwhelming majority of cases represent little else than greater effort or the achievement of proficiency, are imbued with special significance and then tagged on to specific people separate them from the hoi polloi, resulting in the alteration of perceptions and behaviour of the masses towards such individuals. To be hard working is to be commonplace, to be brilliant is to be extraordinary. And to be called brilliant is even better. Language, as is obvious, plays a key role in the development of social constructs. The origins of present day social constructionist theories go back to the writings of Immanuel Kant. Kant argued for the existence of a world that was independent of human minds, thus implying that humans should not assert that they created the world. This world, he said, is without structure and is not divided into things and facts. Structure is imposed on the world by perceiving it and thinking of it in specific ways, as also by the adoption of particular, (rather than other), sets of beliefs about it. Vivine Burr (2003, p 2) and other advocates of social constructionist theory put forth the view that knowledge of constructionism enables individuals to adopt critical attitudes towards their conventional lenses for perceiving and understanding the world and their own selves. It provides humans with fresh ways of assessing ideas and things that are otherwise considered to be commonplace and accepted without demur. Numerous things like money, newspapers or citizenship are socially constructed and would not obviously have existed in the absence of society. Each of them furthermore could have well been differently constructed. This essay analyses and critiques the use of social constructionism by social workers in the understanding human behaviour. Specific emphasis has been given to the role of constructionism use in analysing commonly held perceptions and attitudes towards mental disorders. The study is segregated into three sections that sequentially take up the use of social constructionism for social workers in understanding human behaviour, its relevance in understanding mental disorders, and its areas of ambiguity and possible misuse. The Use of Social Constructionism to Understand Human Behaviour Social workers have two fundamental objectives, namely, (a) the strengthening of the ability of individuals and groups to cope with the many difficulties and challenges they confront in life and (b) the bringing about of improvements in various social and environmental circumstances in order to improve the satisfaction of human needs; especially of people from underprivileged and oppressed social segments. Social workers plan and attempt their various interventions through their understanding of environmental circumstances, the various reasons for development of such conditions, and the client system. Such knowledge and the consequent adoption of theoretic approaches significantly influence the point, the tool, and the nature of social work intervention. It becomes evident that understanding of the reality of the client environment is crucial, both to social work theory and to its practice. Theories of classical empiricism assert that the truth about the world is established and is independent of the individual. Social constructionism conversely puts forth the viewpoint that such truth, far from being independent of individuals, actually depends upon their thoughts, perceptions and beliefs. Whilst empiricists state that reality cannot be known separately from our elucidation of it, social constructionism messages that reality is constructed socially, with language being critical for the interpretation and construction of commonly accepted reality. It encourages people to question the widely held perception that conventional and accepted knowledge has sprung from objective and impartial examination of the world. It is in this sense opposed to the positivist epistemology of traditional science and spurs thinking individuals to constantly question their assumptions about the appearance of their environment and its various components. Objectivists assert that individuals make discoveries and find out about the reality of the world through the construction and testing of hypotheses via the actions of neutral observers, even as constructionists debunk such assumptions, arguing that the interests and values of observers can never be separated from their observations and are thus bound to influence the final construction of common perceptions about world realities. Gergen (1985, p 270), states that generation of ideas of reality is initiated by social, rather than individual, processes and that the touted objective reality of the positivist approach is actually the result of various social construction processes that are influenced by historical, political, cultural and economic conditions. Berger and Luckmann, (1966), state that individuals experience the world to be an objective reality, comprising of persons and events that exist separately of individual perceptions. Payne (1997), additionally states that reality, according to social constructionism, can be stated to be the guidance of behaviour by individual perceptions of knowledge and reality. Individuals arrive at shared perceptions of reality through the sharing of their knowledge via different social processes that first organise such knowledge and thereafter establish it by making it objective. Social and individual activity thus becomes habitual with individuals sharing their assumptions about their perceptions of reality. People behave in line with social conventions that are based on such shared knowledge. These conventions are furthermore institutionalised because of the agreement of many people on such understandings on different aspects of society. Such realisations and accords thereafter become legitimi sed by processes that integrate these ideas about reality into ordered and believable systems. Language provides the means through which individuals make sense of their environment, classify persons and events, and interpret new experiences. The shared reality of everyday life by different individuals distinguishes it from individual realities, (like dreams). Language helps individuals in sharing their experiences and making it available to others. Such sharing of reality leads to institutionalisation and thereafter to habitual ways of working. Habitualism in turn makes the behaviour of different individuals predictable, facilitates joint activity and perpetuates social control mechanisms. Knowledge is as such institutionalised within sub-groups, or at social levels, and significantly influences the behaviour of people. Shakespeare famously used his felicity with language to construct an illusionary reality about Jewish greed that persisted for centuries and shaped the perceptions and behaviours of millions of people towards the community. With such knowledge of reality being essentially constructed, it can change over time and diverge across cultural groups that embrace different perceptions and beliefs about human nature and development. Considering that the norms, beliefs, values, traditions, attitudes and practices of different cultural groups vary from each other, the social construction of their knowledge is also likely to differ significantly. An understanding of this fundamental principle can help social workers in their realisation of the different perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of different individuals towards similar social phenomena or stimuli. Social constructionism helps social workers in adopting critical stances towards established assumptions that reinforce the interests of powerful and dominant social groups and assists them in realising that the world has come about because of historical processes of communication and negotiation between groups and individuals. Gergen (1985, p 266), states that people see the world through the eyes of their particular communities and cultures and respond accordingly. Established assumptions, understandings and behaviours of people are sustained by social, political, economic and moral institutions. Social workers should, through its application, be better able to understand the various dimensions of reality within such individual thoughts, perceptions and beliefs. Social workers, the writer feels, need to realise that social understanding is finally the combined result of various human understandings through the operation of circular processes, wherein individuals contribute to the construction of social meaning within social structures of societies through processes of institutionalisation and legitimisation. Societies consequently create conventions through the participation of individuals in their structures, which, in turn influences the behaviours of people. Spirals of constantly moving influences build and rebuild the conventions that people adopt and by which they live. Social constructionism allows social workers to question dominant structures of knowledge and understand the impact of culture and history. Social workers understand the requirements of humans by and large through the application of specific ideological, ethical, political and economic approaches. An understanding of social constructionism can help them in understanding the responses behind the actions of both dominant and vulnerable groups of society and decide upon the adoption of the best suited routes for bringing about social change. Social Constructionism and Mental Illness Much of modern societys perceptions about mental ailments are influenced by the medical and psychological models. These state that medical illnesses are real; they concern disturbances in thoughts, experiences, and emotions that can be serious enough to cause functional impairment in individuals. Such ailments make it difficult for individuals to sustain interpersonal relationships and conduct their jobs. They can also sometimes result in self destructive actions, including suicides. The more serious of such illnesses, like extreme depression and schizophrenia, can often be chronic and lead to serious disability. Social constructionism argues that such perceptions about mental ailments are caused by specifically constructed vocabularies of medical and psychological models, which are replete with elaborate terminologies for mental disorders and focused on deficits. Walker, (2006), states that vocabularies of medical and psychological models, including the concept of mental illness itself, are essentially social constructions. They are made up of terms that describe deficits and diseases and perceive human beings as things that can be examined, diagnosed and treated, much in the manner of machines. Such perceptions (a) lead to obsessions with compliance, (b) distinguish between normal and pathological states, (c) position practitioners as experts, and (d) represent clients as passive and obedient objects of treatment. Recommended treatments focus on elimination of symptoms, support established paternalistic roles, and are not focused on actual client needs. Social constructionism, the writer fe els, can help social workers in understanding the destructive illusions that have been created by existing medical and psychological models and deficit based language. Examined from the perspective of linguistics, reified categories like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are defined by clusters termed as symptoms; schizophrenia for example is concerned with the occurrence of audio hallucinations. Such terms have come about due to the creation of consensus among doctors and psychologists and persist because of convention. Mental illnesses are often described by such specialists in terms akin to physical ailments like diabetes, where individuals manage their lives with specific medications; these comparisons are used to explain the working of medications and to make diagnosis and recommended treatment for mental ailments acceptable to clients. Analogies like these however do appear to the writer to be forced and even trifling considering that discussions about thoughts and feelings of individuals concern their identities and not their bodies. Social workers need to understand that the vocabularies of medical and psychological models essentially position clinicians as the most suitable interpreters of client experiences. Even superficially docile terms like clinical or treatment plans establish contexts where clients are perceived to be abnormal or having pathologies, even as clinicians are established as authorities with abilities to perform interventions for assisting clients in overcoming their pathologies. With the power of definition lying with clinicians, the labelling of people as mentally ill pushes them to the borders of society and takes away from them their intrinsic rights and privileges. Social constructionism helps social workers in understanding that whilst political and human pressure has helped in eliminating the incarceration of the mentally ill in mental hospitals, the distinction created by vocabulary on mental illness leads to the movement of foci of power to clinicians and undermines efforts for self determination and community integration. Such medical and psychological vocabularies constitute obstacles to more inclusive mental health programmes and undermine social understanding of people with mental disorders. Gray Areas Social workers need to however recognise the gray areas that surround social constructionist theory. Dominelli (97) states that social workers are ironically likely to regulate the social construction of the children of poor families, with whom they work extensively, by giving credibility to the dominant, white, heterosexual, nuclear family model. The writer feels that the casual application of the theory for the debunking of each and every thing, including important issues like culture and community, can lead to confusion and dilute the focus of social workers. Race and religion, for example, are essentially social constructs of dominant power groups but that does not take away from the fact that they exist and are not expected to disappear because of critical analysis by social constructists. Wanton overdoing of social construction has often resulted in methodologically substandard work, wherein scholars have spent time in libraries, worked on some novels and then put forth findings that the common images and metaphors in them were social constructions with wide relational powers in the reality, which such novels attempted to represent. Roche and Barnes Holmes (2003) state that the strength of social constructivism is also its weakness; its deconstructive methods dissolve the solutions as well as the problems from which they emerge. Social constructions surround us and include diverse aspects like racism, child abuse, crime, and disease. The writer feels that these things do not become unreal because of their social construction; even though the dominance of construction processes may differ between each of them.Spending a great deal of time in showing that most things are social constructs can well be little other than wasted effort. The large body of doctors and psychologists are again unlikely to give up their vocabulary because constructionists do not believe in them. Conclusions It is evident from the preceding discussion that the ongoing debate and dialogue on social constructionism has facilitated a whole new way of looking at established and accepted realities. With regard to the theory and practice of social work, the use of constructionism can help social workers in understanding how dominant groups have for long institutionalised constructs like race, age, gender, and physical and mental disability to perpetuate models of oppression and discrimination. Students and practitioners of social work, whilst making use of this theory, will however do well to consider that excessive stress on constructionist language and downplaying of materiality may well be counterproductive and result not only in idle discourse but in superimposition of their socialised views on vulnerable social segments. Social workers who participate in what they feel are social constructs could also end up questioning the relevance of their work. They may thus have to battle with their being engaged in phony actions and be adversely affected by the creation of manipulative sensibilities. Social workers must try to ensure that the theory is used practically for widening their knowledge and clarifying different aspects of human behaviour, yet refrain from making it irrelevant and trivial.

America and Muslims

Undoubtedly, the relationship between America and the Islam world has been on the wane. This continues to worsen with claims that anti terror agents are spreading a stereotype that targets Muslims especially of Arab origin. The relationship that America has with the Middle Eastern countries has changed rapidly and is now characterized by mutual acrimony and suspicion.With the coming in of the newly elected president, Barrack Obama and with a promise of revamping Americas foreign policy is being viewed with a glimmer of hope and renewed ties with the Muslim world, indeed this is the message communicated to the world by the recent visit to Turkey. With the war on terror still on, a significant proportion of Americans believe that extending an olive branch towards the Muslim countries is the wrong approach, instead, they belief that he should carry on with Bush policies and eliminate terrorism through force.However, this paper maintains that to change the prevalent perception that the t hat the world has with the United States and also to erase suspicions over the blanket condemnation with Islam, America needs to re-initiate foreign ties and extend an olive branch to the Muslim world. The hostility characterizing the relationship between America and Muslim can be traced to the events of the September 11, 2001 attack. It is important to recognize that the 2001 terrorist attack was a big blow to the United States and hit at the core of its emotions and continues to evoke anger to date.With this being the worst atrocity ever meted out on Americans in their own soil, it was bound to evoke all manner of responses both from the public and the ruling elite. The fact that the attack was masterminded and executed by the al Qaeda, a, Muslim extremist group was possible to evoke anti Islam sentiments amongst the Americans. This ushered an era of suspicion and poor relations between Islam and America. This situation was ultimately compounded by the response and the policies of President Bush.Bush responded with a decisive precision that has become a characteristic of America’s response to perceived aggression from outside. His policies and approach to attack the core of terrorism was interpreted to mean that he was out to attack Muslims (Rabasa et al 43). It has to be pointed out that after the onset of the attack, many Muslim leaders came out publicly to condemn the attack, â€Å"many Muslim leaders abroad were as keen to distance themselves from the terrorism of September 11 as were Muslim leaders in the United States.† (Crockatt 74) With the exception of Iraq, majority of Islam states also condemned the attack. In his congressional address, Bush reiterated his stand on terrorism maintaining that he did not share in the perception that Islam was fuelling terrorism. However, the situation on the ground and indeed at the international politics coupled with the war against terrorism was different, the fateful events of the 9/11 created tensi ons not only in America but internationally, â€Å"Muslim feel that even though they had nothing to do with those involved with terrorism, they are being targeted and profiled by government agencies.† (Khan 57) Bush’s policies and actions did nothing to change this but on the contrary reinforced it, his clarions call of you are either with the terrorists or against us meant there was no middle ground and was lumping Muslims together with the terrorists. His concentration on the Middle East as the base to fight terrorism also was an indication that he believed the Middle East, the epicenter of Islam, was behind terrorism and this is the main perception held by many Americans today. Cenap Cakmak Zaman in his article titled: What does Obama’s visit say about future Turkish-American relations?, he has examined this relationship, looking at how the recent visit to turkey by Obama will change the perception in the Muslim world. Obama is faced with an uphill task of ch anging this perception and also rooting it out terrorism. His popularity and positive ratings world wide lies on his message of hope and change, the change we need clarion call may have been intended for domestic affairs in Washington but the position of the United States as a global leader means that it has a huge stake in global politics.His change message hence has to be duplicated internationally and in the Middle East is where it should commence. As Cakmak maintains, â€Å"the damage done by George W. Bush to American foreign policy was extensive. Reliance on a political design similar to the Bush style would surely make the damage irreparable and US foreign policy unsustainable†. The recent Obama’s visit to Turkey can be said to be well thought out and indeed timely. The Obama’s administration in its bid to woo Muslims into the mainstream should start with Turkey because of two reasons.Geopolitically, Turkey lies in one of the most important location, bord ering Iraq and also having its foot in Europe. Turkey is both crucial to the advancement of Obama’s policies in the Middle East and also in NATO. Cakmak has appreciated this by maintaining that â€Å"Obama’s administration appreciates how Turkey is indispensable in its Middle Eastern policies and actions. † Core logic behind establishing good ties with Turkey lies in the fact that it is comprised of a majority Muslims. Although secular by nature, Turkey has a huge Muslim population.Acceptance of America amongst the Turkish leadership, which has been vocal in its criticism of Bush’s reign, will go along way in thawing the existing tension and impasse with the Muslim world (Journal of Turkish Weekly). Obamas current approach represents a radical shift from the Bush’s administration which failed to recognize the strategic importance of Turkey. It is important to point out that although Turkey is crucial if easing tension with Muslims is to be achieved , it may not necessarily be an authority in the region.Due to its secularism and westernization, Turkey is not fully regarded as an Islamic state, despite its huge Islamic population. However, the recent visit may work in Obama’s favor and install Turkey as a regional leader. A prudent analysis of this visit indicates that it meant to provide a new thinking and goes a long way in reassuring Muslims world wide of the United States commitment towards re-establishing the much needed good relations with Muslims. It re-emphasizes the need for multilateral approach to global problems and might provide the needed impetus towards the fight against terrorism.A continuation of Bush’s policies will be counterproductive as it was the cause of the existing tension. For his administration to emerge credible, it must denounce unilateral approach that characterized Bush’s administration. In this way, America will be seen as working with the Muslims but not against them. Works C ited Crockatt, Richard. After 9/11: cultural dimensions of American global power. Routledge, 2007, 74 Khan, Arshad. Islam, Muslims, and America: understanding the basis of their conflict. Algora Publishing, 2003, 57 Rabasa A. , Benard C. , Chalk P., Fair C. The Muslim world after 9/11. Rand Corporation, 2004, 43 USAK Experts and Researchers Assessed Obama's Visit to Turkey. Journal of Turkish Weekly. 8 April 2009. Retrieved on April 26, 2009 from http://www. turkishweekly. net/news/71215/usak-experts-and-researchers- assessed-obama-39-s-visit-to-turkey. html Zaman, Cakmak. What does Obama’s visit say about future Turkish-American relations? New York community media alliance. 9 April 2009. Retrieved on April 26, 2009 from http://www. indypressny. org/nycma/voices/368/editorials/editorials_2/