Before westerners came, were islamic nations in good shape? No, they were doing the same as now but worse, fighting and killing each other. They were stopped from taking over the west in the seventeenth century and they turned on each other. Now they have turned back to us. But what they want we can't give them. We can't make them happy.

People made the same excuses for the germans as they make for muslims. the poor germans were badly treated by the allies in wwI. they lost territory. that's why they became nazis. and so, let's let them do whatever they want.

what the letters here show is that we are all sinners. ultimately which side are you on? that's the real question. it's amazing how people who call themselves liberal have no problem with any kind of oppression as long as the practitioners are not western or white.

I had a discussion once with two young men in Rome, whose families were from Morrocco. They described in great detail how they hated walking around and seeing all the infidel artwork, christian temples, naked statutes, etc. They hate it. And one day they will be in a position to have the statute of David ground down. what will you say then liberals? thank god, the artwork of the evil white man is destroyed?

Try to understand other cultures as humans, not as your innocent dark skinned angels who want nothing more than to live in liberal hippie land. They don't want that any more than our ancestors did in 1200. That does not mean you have to hate them or destroy them. that's the liberal alternative to total capitulation. but we can't let them destroy us.

Fighting for their Country?

Fighting for their Homes?

Fighting for their Children?

Fighting for their Lives?

SENDING THOSE FLOWERS BACK TO AMERICA

in boxes.

History Majors at Yale must not read History and probably only make it to Lieutenant and COMMENDER and CHEF!

Please Lord, keep him safe as next up is even worse.

FIGHTING TO IMPEACH ALL WASHINGTON TERRORISTS, from the Top down.

You know, I hate it when posters trash other posters on boards like this - it just turns it all into a food fight where nothing gets accomplished.

But Fenella's pretty cracked.

"Bush did not create the troubles among muslims. They created them themselves. It may be true that his policies make them more angry, but wouldn't that be true of any American or western policy..."

True that Muslims and Arabs have an amazing tendency to fight against whoever is standing next to them. Look at Hamas and Fatah right now - you don't see Isralis shooting at each other like that. So the best thing to do for us westerners is to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE.

Israel: Why the hell did you decide to rip off Arab land? Didn't you realize that it doomed you to perpetual war for the rest of eternity? It was the Europeans who created the holocaust; that's where your land should have been cut out of. The violence you suffer is your own damn fault.

Bush: Why did you make war spontaneously against a defenseless country? Saddam was pinned down - the northern third was effectively occupied by the US already, and trade was forced through an embargo. There is absolutely no reason for the US to be in there, other than war profiteering and oil stealing. I read somewhere that the Administration has put forth 23 different reasons to go into Iraq, and each and every one of them has proven to be bullshit. WMD? Saddam torturing prisoners? Either the original crime was a lie, or the US continues the perpetration after Saddam is pushed aside. Islamics don't always hate America, they only hate America when it fucks with them for no good reason.

"We have to defend ourselves, which is what Bush is doing." Oh, come on. No intelligent person believes this anymore. Defending against what? 16,000 chemical warheads? A Nuke that could strike London in 45 minutes? We're not fighting Saddamists, we're fighting the locals. 85% of Iraqis want the US out. Do you still think we're "Liberators"? Did you know that Saddam also had trouble with Falluja? It was the biggest center of resistance against Saddam in his whole country. You don't read this on US news.

"To hear american liberals tell it, [France is] perfect in regard to muslims." I don't remember any liberal in America saying such a ridiculous thing. Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh and give yourself a month for the koolaid to wear off. Then maybe you can think rationally again.

"Cole's arguments are akin to those against world war II." Oh, come on. Liberals are always equating Iraq and Vietnam, and conservatives are always equating Iraq and WW2. And both punch holes in the other's analogies. At least in WW2 we had other countrys supporting us. Not this phony "Coalition of the Willing-To-Be-Bribed" that we have now. And we didn't have the widespread war profiteering and rampant graft that you see in Iraq. That's money in Cheney's pocket.

Cole may not have the complete, objective grasp of the situation. He may, at times, point too frequently at Bush while neglecting to underscore more relevant complexities. But even if he were entirely wrong about this situation there still isn't one iota of legitimacy for America's hideous War on Terror. The damage it's doing cannot be overstated. And any comment that even infers a sense of legitimacy for that policy is worse ethically and logically than any argument Cole has made on this site since the War began.

The apologists' days are coming to an end, for the evidence is indisputable. Now any defense of America's foreign policy, and the damage it's doing to the Islamic world in particular and the world in general, has not one shred of empirical support. And those pretending otherwise share in the responsibility for the continuation of America's bloody foreign policy.

Fenella, in particular, has shown an outrageous, delusional perspective by consistently defending Bush and condemning en masse the Islamic world for the problems "They created for themselves." How can she do that, letter after letter? Because she dismisses the Western imperialist manipulation that created Iraq, which callously reorganized territories, tribes, and sacred allegiance for the sake of exogenous, mercantile interests.

If the land now designated as Iraq had developed on its own without Western exploitation then maybe their problems would've been "created" by themselves. Maybe if the U.S. hadn't supported and then armed Hussein with WMDs to fight Iran, their problems would've been their own. And maybe if the Baathists hadn't been enamored with strains of Fascism minted in the West (Hitler and Stalin), their problems would be indigenous rather than Western inspired. But those things didn't happen. Accordingly, Bush certainly isn't the progenitor, but an exploitative imperialist in a long line of Western, conservative, military-industrial leaders imposing their rule on an otherwise sovereign nation. Should the Iraqis grin and bare it? Should they embrace the idea that since the embargo well over 100,000 civilians have died? Should they be thrilled their infrastructure is in ruins and their oil remains in the ground?

What if the roles were reversed and history had gifted Iraq with the powers to impose their will on America? Would Americans be expected to quietly submit to such treachery? Not on your life. America, as it did in the Revolutionary War, would form it's own kind of insurgency to kick the occupiers out. And only someone believing in the neoconservative double standard, like Fenella, would fail to see the enormous discrepancy in her loyalties.

And who is Fenella kidding but the neoconservative hawks when she states: "We have to defend ourselves which is what Bush is doing." Defend ourselves from a country that not only didn't have WMDs but wasn't properly equipped to conduct conventional warfare? Hussein's extended war with Iran demonstrated his monumental incompetence as a military strategist. What kind of fight could he have ever waged against the U.S.? The fight was in Afghanistan, not Iraq. And in prosecuting that War, Bush is proving to be as incompetent a leader as Hussein was.

Fenella writes, "We can't change their minds." No, and apparently, despite bountiful evidence you can't change yours. Until you do, however, expect those of us armed with reason to rip your arguments apart.