jesus christ... what a silly tirade.. Apparently the Iraq war went all wrong cuz today's american is a useless, perverted lazy bum who asks unneccessary questions. Of course it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the stupidity of the war in the first place.

The way i see it, the absolute lack of faith in the current government is not a failing of the people.. it is a failing of the government.

Firstly i would like to deal with one incredibly stupid conclusion reached in this article. He points out that as many as one third of the muslims in the world are sympathetic to the terrorist cause. This here is a classic example of twisting figures to create alarm. Here's why:

There is no possible way of actually getting to a figure like this, considering the huge spectrum of islamic societies. Even so, he says that 300 million people are "sympathetic to the terrorist cause". Fine i would say that's not wholly unthinkable. HOWEVER a distinction that he has failed to make is whether those that support the "CAUSE" actually support violence and terrorist means.

I have said this on several occasions before, that some of the grievances and complaints uttered by extremists like OBL and Ahmedinejad are GENUINE COMPLAINTS. The muslim population would ahve these complaints EVEN IF NEITHER OBL or AHMEDINEJAD EXISTED. The DIFFERENCE however comes in how they wish to deal with it. The vast majority of these 300 million may agree with some of the goals of the extremists, but that is not the same as endorsing suicide bombings. So this man is clearly off the makr when he says there are 300 million potential suicide bombers out there. All he can claim is that 300 million people agree with some of the statements made by these nutjobs. For instance they both claim that the US exploits the world. YOu don't have to be a potential suicide bomber to agree with that. They want the US out of the muslim countries. YOu don't have a to be a potantial suicide bomber to want that.. all you have to be is a nationalist that believes in the sovereignty of his nation. In fact there are plenty of things that ahmedinejad has said that i agree with. But that is not a support of him or his ham-handed extremism.

Hasn't anybody ever wondered how these guys manage to garner support. It is NOT only because they give a violent outlet to violent people. It is because some of the things they say RING TRUE. SO those 300 million people are people that share the same complaints as the terrorists.. howevr the VAST MAJORITY of them will naught to do with the terrorism of OBL.

Anyhow as to the rest of the article i would call it a bunch of self-righteous silliness. The War on Terror is not a conventional war. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with the WOT. In fact the attempt to link WW2 patriotism with the Iraq war is a sad attempt at connecting things that have no similarity. WW2 was a retaliation against a nation that had ACTUALLY ATTACKED the US ( as opposed to fake claims of WMDs). WW2 was a war that was thrust upon the US, not one that the rich elite went looking for. WW2 was a war the americans fought because they were called to it ( as opposed to imposing it on the world inspite of world opinion). WW2 was a matter of safeguarding friednly nations against another superpower ( as opposed to the Iraq war which was a matter of safeguarding oil interests- unsuccessfuly).

In WW2 the people were not able to get detailed information on the incompetence of the war effort ( like "losing" 200,000 automatic rifles or $2billion in cash) In WW2, the average american was convinced of the righteousness of the war effort ( but the Iraq war was controversial from the start - and rightly so, since it ws clearly a bad move). The reason the Iraq war is being criticized so much is because your leaders can't pull the wool over your eyes so easily any more. It has NOTHING to do with the level of patriotism of the people.

WW2 was a different time, a different world, with a different level of awareness. The comparison is moot. The US needs to move on from WW2. This is not that world anymore.