I'm surprised no one has brought up Pat Buchanon, who I believe has written a book coming down harshly on the 'neo-cons'.

What I'm not clear about, because I haven't read a lot of this conservative critical works, is are we talking about a severe break. Are these guys advocating voting for Kerry? Is this serious enough to be a break in the Republicans? Because their convention looks pretty damn unified and dare I say, snazzy?

BTW, if you want to take up origin of wars, we can light a nice fire on that ol' chestnut, was the Civil War fought against slavery, or was the War Between the States fought to preserve States' Rights? As far as Israel goes, I have a history book that doesn't agree with Carol's. But it does go so far as to say: "The Wars of Israel are not a matter of wrong versus right, but a matter of right versus right." Which is what makes this subject (and the US Civil War) quite contentious at times, particularly if you have a vested interest.

One other reflection: During the War of US Independence, (or liberation), the common historical view is that about a third of American colonists were pro-revolution, a third were loyal to the Crown, and a third didn't care. There was a huge amount of dispossession and relocation at that time, and one of the results was the beginning of the Anglo - French difficulties in Canada, because until that time almost all the Canadian residents were Francophones, with an English administration.

The point being: Israel resettled the dislocated of other lands, the Arab nations around it did not. We have an inherent imbalance here.

Now my tortured attempt to relate this to the thread title. There seems to be a division in the United States leadership as to how to relate to the mideast in relation to the US special relationship to Israel. The current president is argued to have a special relationship to the Saudi royal family. Is this true? Isn't it remarkable that a conservative American leadership is able to straddle this divide?

As to Europeans taking polls. I guess I'm as willing as any American to believe the worst of Europeans. BUT, without knowing how that poll was structured, what was meant by the word 'danger', in other words, there's not enough information there for me to get all bothered about Europeans. We Americans have produced some pretty flaky polls in our time, and I'm not getting near the subject of
'Freedom Fries'.