I have been traveling in the Muslim World since 1994.  I have visited 10 Muslim countries many times, in my business:  39 visits to India; 10 to Pakistan; 5 to Bangladesh; 19 to Saudi Arabia since 2002; 10 to Qatar since 2002; innumerable to UAE since 1981; etc.   I have come to respect Muslim communities as peaceful and family oriented places; with many attributes I would love to see adopted in the USA.   

On July 7, 2005, I was on a flight between Doha and Jeddah when the London bombings occurred.  I was immediately offended by the coverage of CNN and BBC, in which they repeatedly used the terms "Islamic Extremist" and "Islamic Terrorist."  As an attorney, I immediately recognized these terms as defamatory (specifically "slander") toward at least 99% of the Muslim community.  In the law of defamation, the "wrong" is an offense to someone.  When someone offends me, I tend to react angrily.  I reasoned that if such phrases were used frequently, they would further radicalize at least some of the young people of the Muslim World. 

One thing led to another over the past two years.  I ended up buying my own portable television studio; and then a second one, to support an intern I hired to help me with distant interviews.  I quickly realized that television programs very quickly disappear.  They are shown once, and perhaps repeated once, and then they are gone.  I therefore created a web site, where some of the more important interviews could remain available semi-permanently ( www.wordsmatter.tv ).  This site contains short video clips of the interviews, which might be too large to download in Saudi Arabia.  I therefore also created audio clips, which are much smaller files, and I am in the process of adding transcripts of the interviews, so that the widest audience can receive the information.  My interview with Samar Fatany, a notable Saudi radio personality and Women's Rights activist, is currently highlighted on the site, along with six others and some of my own thoughts.
  
Throughout my regular travels to the Middle East, my friends have urged me to write a book about my experiences in preparing "Words Matter."    In response to my friends' urging, I have begun to develop my book online under the name Tsunami of Blood ( www.tsunamiofblood.com ).  The name comes from the fact that I believe forces are developing in the Middle East, especially, which are likely to cause us a very difficult quarter century.  Mr. Bush and the Israelis are most to blame recently; but I must say that there is blame to go around to all governments.  Noam Chomsky opines that the role of 80% of any population is to follow orders from the managing 20%.  This works well, where there are lots of distractions, to make these 80% happy with their lives.  Examples in the USA are many many professional sports teams, and sports at every level, movies, education, successful jobs, and dating.   In my perception, there are very few distractions, especially for the young men of the Muslim World, of whom there are many, as you know.  I believe that the frustrations engendered are leading these young men to turn to radical Islam, and taking matters into their own hands with guns. 

As you know, a tsunami is an energy wave, which is not apparent on the surface, and which travels at 500 miles per hour beneath the surface, but ultimately causes catastrophe when it hits the shoreline.  My hypothesis is that there is an equally dangerous energy wave of the frustrations mentioned above, which travels at the speed of light (cell phones, blogs, etc. etc.).  We have witnessed some of the early hits on the shoreline of civilization in 9/11, London, Madrid, Riyadh, Jeddah, Beirut (the murder of 231 Marines serving as peace keepers in 1982), Mumbai, and recently almost back to London.  The recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah was really a distraction from this much bigger problem, which puts the entire Middle East in peril.  I reason in my "Introduction," that when the junkyard dog fighters from Iraq return to their home countries, they will mix with the frustrated masses (I estimate about 1.5 million frustrated young men in Saudi Arabia alone; and about 6,000 Saudi fighters in Iraq), trouble will abound.  I believe that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria are also seriously at risk, because of the numbers of their foreign fighters in Iraq. 

Mr. Bush and his pals have made this problem much worse, by their support of Israel recently.  If we estimate that there are about 100 million young men between 15 and 23, across the Muslim World; and we assume that Mr. Bush has further radicalized only 10% of them, adding to the intensity of the Tsunami of Blood, then that means the he has radicalized approximately 10,000 new potential enemies for every one member of Hezbollah, who was killed in the recent conflict.  That is horrific performance, but my country's leaders just don't get it!  They are putting all of us in jeopardy! 

My objective in my work on "Words Matter" is to provide a different perspective.  I find that I have been able to influence opinions, even at the highest levels of the US government.    Whether they change their rhetoric because of me, I do not know; but the fact that they do sometimes gives me positive reinforcement. 

Another objective has been to encourage more activism within the Muslim community, both in the USA and internationally.  By this I mean peaceful activism.  If Muslims do not have a seat at the table, when they're deciding which stories to put on CNN and how to say them, then the Muslim perspective will be lost to someone else, a Black or woman, who does have a seat at the table, because of their own earlier struggles.  That's just one tiny point of hundreds I am trying to make.  I have also been trying, by the things I say and do, to get Muslims debating among themselves about what the proper courses of action should be to ensure that our children and grandchildren will live in peace.  I see no particular need why I should be included in such discussions, but I am honored that I sometimes am. 

By the way, I have never been paid a penny for any of these activities, and have supported them entirely at my own expense.  When I look back on my life, I hope I will regard this time as one in which I made a contribution to civilization.  I suppose we all hope something like that, in one way or another.

        Best regards, Skip Conover, President, Words Matter, LLC

               ( www.wordsmatter.tv  and www.tsunamiofblood.com )

Please begin reading Tsunami of Blood  with the Introduction, which has its own link on the Navigator column.  You will need the Introducation in order to understand the context of the book.  Thereafter, if you wish to read the book in order, it is necessary to begin with the Chapter Listing link above, which makes all chapters available.  The "Journal" page only carries the most recent pieces, chronologically, with the oldest at the bottom.  While I will always attempt to make each piece gripping, or at least interesting, and even useful, it would be best to know the whole story.