Very true and I agree with this 100%. In fact, cooperation with them is almost the only way to win a war against this type of extremism. This is a different war than any other (obviously because its not even really a war in the sense of its definition [the broader "war on terrorism" that is]). Its rather a struggle against an ideology of religious extremism and sensless martyrdom. But, I don't think we can play the holier than thou card if we ourselves have religious extremisim in our own back yard. Obviously its not as rampant, but its there. But I don't think this is just against Islam but extremism of all religions that can be found in most countries including our own. If its a war of ideology then we can't fight it in conventional terms, but we must come to an understanding. Its a war of information and ideals, so the only way to fight it is with information and education.

Likewise we need the full backing of moderate Muslims. But the language we use and the actions we carry out certainly isn't gaining the support of the moderate Muslim community but rather the direct opposite; pitting them against us and many of them are joining the radical rings. The problem is, is that we have people like Alias in power (who called for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Muslim nations) that think this is a conventional war. Consequently we have many innocents being killed, many tortured, and funding focused on the occupation and building of permanent bases rather than rebuilding the country. We also have a president who keeps proclaiming that you're either with him or with the terrorists. Moderate muslims then look around at what the President is proclaiming as "a good job" (which in reality is bloodshed and torture) and thinks, 'well I'm certainly not with you'. And unfortunately many make the connection that they have to be with the terrorists to push out the Americans. Because right now Bush is saying Iraq is peachy and we brought freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people; well the Iraqi people see more death, torture, and oppression than under Saddam and as you can imagine are therefore getting a really bad impression of freedom and democracy.

So I think the first and foremost thing we need to do is have an administration that is truthful, upfront, and dedicated to true change in Iraq rather than control of Iraq. But most of all, since this is a war of ideology, we definetly need to be careful with our language. No more of this "bring 'em on" stuff from our leaders.