Re: Slag

" I gotta tell ya folkiedave, they ARE coming after you when they get the chance. Are you going to lay down and die for them? Have you ever eaten pork? You're a goner. Lines have been drawn and if you choose to ignore them, that's at your own peril. Have mistakes been made? Of course. Do they have legitimate issues? I know they do. But you have to know that their main concern is not addressing those issues in a civilized manner. They are bent upon the destruction of Israel and the USA and that, my friend, includes you".

Slag: I wouldn't like to live under the Taliban etc., either. I like my freedoms, such as they are (and our so-called democratic governments are using the war on 'terror' to make as many inroads into these as they can). But look at it another way: for well over the last 50 years the West has been interfering with the middle east and Islamic way of life. Who installed the Shah of Iran, who turned into sucha corrupt little despot he ended up being overthrown by the Iranian revolution? The Iranians were so pissed off at the US interference thye ended up closing the US embassy and kicking the Americans out (and the White House is a sore loser). Who armed and helped Saddam terrorise his own people? He was allowed to get away literally with murder until he got too big for his boots and invaded Kuwait. It didn't matter then that he tortured and killed thousands of his own people, that he gassed the Kurds etc., When they rose up against him after the 1st Gulf War, they were promised help by the US, but then hung out to dry (by Bush snr, it runs in the family). It was the same the world over - Chile (Pinochet) Panama (where the US even had the nerve to install a CIA agent - Noriega - as president) and so on in a long, long list. None of these puppet leaders were likeable men, and none had any respect for democratic norms. It didn't matter a damn as long as they followed orders from the White House. Now, they find US and British troops on their soil, laying waste to their country and telling them - at gunpoint - that they must live according to a different model of society, one th West happens to value, but in a modified form for export, where big business is the real government (actually, come to think of it, western 'democracy' is no different, just more sugar-coated). If I were an Arab I would probably conclude that my country would be far better off without these heavily-armed philanthrophists and do my best to see them to the door. Trouble is, the West doesn't just want Muslims to fit in with our particular way of life while they are living in the west, we expect them to live according to our way of life even when they happen to be living in their own countries.

(By the way, I know that the Soviet Union had an appalling record of interfering in democracies too, and had a terrible human rights record, and still does as Russia in Chechnya; as does China re.Tianamen Sqaure and Tibet , etc., etc., )