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I agree that it might help reduce terrorism in the long run
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Good, I agree with this too. It is constructive, it can be done by us now. It does not in any way hurt us, except for a short time image issue -- which will need to be managed.
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Note on how we are viewed and why there is so much undercurrent of distrust and hatred of the US:
Even in today's news, I read Rice in Israel suggesting to Sharon that he work with PA to manage the pullout from Gaza and parts of the WB. Sharon then turns around and tells Israel that he plans to take more land for the Ariel settlement and to grab more of Jerusalem.
No wonder the Muslim world sees us as kowtowing and/or powerless to the will of Israel and acting as a biased superpower in suppressing the Muslim/Arab in the middle east.
Rice talks, Sharon ignores
Read the last paragraph of the blog entry for the AQ connection.
It is on the sidewalks of Jerusalem and hovels of refugee camps, in the suppression of Islam in Saudi, the streets of Cairo that the terror is bred. Here the oppression is converted into hysteria by the Mullahs, the sense of injustice is fostered and grown and nurtured until one of them flies a plane into a building or blows a bomb on a bus. The reasons that inflame the mind of the impressionable. These are issues we can control and act upon. They are tough, not easily reduced to sound bites and politically hard to work.
The roots are not on the sidewalks of London, the Islamic state of Iran, the Saddam led Iraq, or Syria. Even the Taliban is not, directly our enemy, they did however give refuge to the enemy and paid the price.
That is where leadership comes in. This is where our present leadership has let us down.