Speaker of Kuwaiti Parliament Jassem Al-Kharafi: We Are Grateful to the U.S. for Liberating Kuwait but the Americans Are Patronizing

Following are excerpts from an interview with Kuwaiti Parliament Speaker Jassem Muhammad Al-Kharafi, which aired on Al-Majd TV on January 21, 2007.

Jassem Muhammad Al-Kharafi: We, in Kuwait, do not deny that we have excellent relations with the Americans. But Kuwait is a sovereign country. Although we appreciate the positive role played by the U.S. in the liberation of Kuwait, which was second only to the role of Allah... We will never forget this. But, I'm sad to say, the American conduct is as far as can be from proper modern conduct. It is patronizing and does not accept that there are different views, even though it demands democracy and many other things that it does not implement on itself. This was evident in everything that happened recently, including with regard to the charity organizations. There was a wave of accusations that all the charities are terrorist, but I hope that a delegation of congressmen or senators will visit Africa or other places where the charities were active. There they will witness the activities of the charities and of people who do benevolent work in this field. They should not make generalizations, just because of a small group of people who acted improperly. Perhaps in one of the cases in which they acted improperly, [the Americans] themselves trained them. They supported them in Afghanistan, and then got into trouble with them.

Interviewer: And then they blamed us.

Jassem Muhammad Al-Kharafi: That is why I would like to return to... In addition, the recent events in Iraq... They must have a sense of how to deal not only with charities, but also with general politics – how to deal with countries and with their peoples.