War has to do with money also. It is big business. Our top leaders do not care so much about the freedom of people in the middle east, but rather having political influence, especially considering how dependent we are on oil. It can be good business sometimes though, as it did pull us from the Great Depression. By the way, we never went to war with the KKK so that analogy does not work well. I do not like Hezbelloh, but how does Arabs not wanting Israel trying to occupy areas outside of their own country all the time not equate to wanting freedom?

You missed the point. Arabs don't even want Israel to occupy their own country, let alone somebody else's. That's the whole problem over there. That's where the analogy with the KKK comes in. If the Arabs had their way, all non-muslims would be wiped off the face of the earth. Didn't you hear what that al-Zawahiri guy said yesterday? He pledged that al-Qaeda would not stop attacking until the entire world converted to Islam. The KKK had pretty much the same intentions only they weren't concerned with the entire planet...only their country. They wanted all non-white, non-Christians gone. I thought it was a pretty good comparison, myself. AND the KKK was actually worse. At least Zawahiri is giving us an out(hint of sarcasm inserted)...convert or die. With the KKK, if you were black, you were just screwed. They didn't have the "Michael Jackson" option of bleaching themselves.

True, we never went to war with the KKK. We didn't need to. They just couldn't seem to get themselves organized enough for outright battle (more sarcasm).

You my friend need to wake up and look what happened here in our country on 9-11. What did we do to the Arabs to deserve that and oh yes how soon we forget. You should learn to understand these Arab people they hate us and the freedoms that we have. They would much rather continue living in the Bible days. And before you pick on Isreal you had better know that they are GOD's chosen ones. Not only that, so many countries have tried to destroy them and failed. They did just what was aked of them and pulled out of the occupied territories and look what happened, the Hezbelloh cowards came across the border and killed Isreal soldiers and then launched a barrage of missles into their country. We always hear about all the civilans killed in Lebanon, but how about all the innocent Isreal citizens that have been killed over the years? Isreal is doing the right thing and if you notice they do not have their faces covered like the cowardly Hezbelloh terrorists do. And the United Nations is the biggest joke to ever be formed. It is my opion that they should be booted out of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA for supporting terrorism.

"Bush two weeks ago likened Hizballah militants to the terrorists who last summer bombed London subways. That implies that Hizballah has the same mind-set and agenda as the global jihadis of al-Qaeda and its imitator groups, but they are not the same. Hizballah's military mission is principally to defend Lebanon from Israeli intrusion and secondarily to destroy the Jewish state. As an Islamist group under Iran's sway, Hizballah would like to see Islamic rule in Lebanon. The global jihadis think much bigger. They are Salafists, radicals who seek to revive the original and, to their minds, pure practice of Islam and establish a caliphate from Spain to Iraq, in all the lands where Islam has ever ruled. The Salafists are Sunni, and Hizballah is Shi'ite, which means their hatred for each other is apt to rival their hatred for the U.S. Al-Qaeda's late leader in Iraq, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, used to say Shi'ites were worse than Americans and launched a brutal war on them in Iraq. Of course, Sunnis and Shi'ites do sometimes cooperate. Ali Mohammed, a former Green Beret who pleaded guilty to being an al-Qaeda agent, testified in 2000 that he had provided security for a meeting in Sudan between Hizballah security chief Imad Mughniyah and Osama bin Laden and that Hizballah had provided al-Qaeda with explosives training. If there was cooperation, it seems to have been short-lived; the two groups certainly aren't allies. Lebanese police in April arrested nine men that Hizballah officials claim were al-Qaeda agents plotting to assassinate their leader. In a recently published interview with the Washington Post's Robin Wright, Nasrallah slammed al-Qaeda. "What do the people who worked in those two [World Trade Center] towers ... have to do with war that is taking place in the Middle East?" he asked. Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri last week released a videotape about the fighting in Lebanon, but at least in the excerpts released by al-Jazeera, he conspicuously failed to encourage Hizballah in its fight against Israel or to so much as mention the group. Instead, al-Zawahiri spoke of the jihad--that is, al-Qaeda's jihad--being the one that would liberate Palestine. " - Time

Maybe you should read this and see that you are racist by grouping all Muslims together. By doing so we are actually encouraging them to work together. This will only work against us. It is better to note their differences, keep them divided and thus keep them weaker.

imdstuf, I understand what you're saying. I, personally, have not grouped all Muslims in the terrorist category. But I'm telling you, it's hard to hang back when you're in public and not raise an eyebrow when you see a guy with a turban on his head.

If you want to call it racism, well, let me put it in a different perspective. What if you were a white person (man or woman..doesn't matter) and you were wronged by a black person...or the other way around. It's human nature to do a double take when you see someone on the street that resembles the one that caused you harm or fear. That person you just passed on the street doesn't have anything to do with your trauma, but they remind you and you are right back where you were when it happened. Not saying the thinking is right, but it is somewhat justified.

Most people these days are more aware of all the things you stated, but not to the degree that you described. Most people don't understand the difference between a Sunni and a Shite or any other Muslim group. And those people that are included in the "most" category are the ones that we, that do get it, have to deal with every day. I work with a bunch of people 5 days a week that have no clue that there are different sects of Islam. It's not really their fault that they don't know. They just aren't interested.

You make good points about keeping them arguing in their own little circles. Makes perfect sense to me. On a level that most any American can understand is keeping things stirred up within a specific political party. Keep them divided and they'll be too worried about each other than the "enemy" (otherwise known as either the donkey or the elephant depending on which side you're on). Isn't that where "United we stand, divided we fall" came from?

Anyway, point is...the average non-Muslim doesn't care how many different Islamic groups there are. Just like they(fanatical Muslims) don't care if we (non-Muslims) are Jews or Christians (to include the different denominations of Christians...Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians..etc). And let's not forget the strife between Catholics and Protestants...still all Christians but fighting with each other in certain regions of the world.

So let's stick with the obvious. Even the Catholics and Protestans will hang with each other in bad times so why should you think that the fanatical Muslims won't do the same? That's what the old guy, al-Zawahiri, is trying to do every time he shows his ugly mug (by the way...why is Osama not on any of these videos? Is it, maybe, because he's already DEAD?)on a new video tape...unite Islam. He doesn't care if you're Sunni or Shiite, or whatever other kind of Muslim you are. He just wants them all to conquer the infidel. Zawahiri doesn't care if it's Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban. Just kill the infidel.

One other thing...it's not just fanatical Islam's hatred for the US, it's their hatred for the Western world. Yeah...the Sunnis and the Shiites went along with Zarqawi. If they didn't, he'd kill them too. Three words...they were afraid. Of course they cooperated. They (Muslims) are all victims of the fanaticism. So do we feel sorry for them because they comply out of fear? Um....NO.

Yes, I guess I see the point, even if Hezbellah is not out to conquer the west, the fact that Al Queda would use them to their own advantage does make them dangerous. Israel getting rid of Hezballah in south Lebanon appears to be harder than thought though...kind of like us going into Iraq. I don't want to see this battle drag on like that. Too much temptation for other countries to get involved again, and I am not ready to see a world war.

Please....spare us. These people don't want to be educated. Not by us, anyway. They don't care what we think. Eradication is the answer, not education.

In case you haven't noticed, we are already dealing with grown up children of the ones that hate us because we didn't take care buisness back in 1983 when Hezbollah first attacked us and killed 241 of our Marines. So if we go along with your way of thinking, we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. At least this way we go down fighting and not looking weak as we have in the past.

Boy are you out of touch with reality. HELLO Mcfly! wake up these Arabs hated us even before we started this battle against world terrorism. Perhaps you need to sit down and talk with my son-in-law who has been there twice, because what you hear on CNN is not the whole story but the negative only and a political ploy to divide and destoy this great country of ours. We all know that Wolf Blitzer hates this current administration and is trying to bring it down by dividing AMERICA. We weren't even involved in the Middle East when they came to our country and killed over 3,000 of our citizens and for what? Because they already hated us and our way of life. They sure opened a big can of whip butt thou and we had better stay the course and complete the mission to include backing Isreal or this country will suffer an attack that will surpass 9-11 because that's how these fanatics operate, by trying to out do each other. I don't like war but I will go and do what is neccessary to defeat these terrorists on their own groun.

You hero need to grow up. War isn't about which country is stronger or who has the better weapons. War is serious and brave men and women loose their lives so that childern like you can go on thinking that it's a video game. War is neccessary when all else fails and in these current situations there is no reasoning with terrorists, because as far as they are concerned they are rightous and we are all low life infidels that must be destroyed. It is far better that we fight them on their own ground than here in AMERICA.

Dude that was a joke, you know something to make people laugh. I got tired of everyone yelling back and forth at each other all over this blog that I thought for once I might lighten it up a bit, but I guess that's not going to happen. I have friends that are over in Iraq and Afganastan and have friends that have died over there. Have you ever been to a close friend's funeral because he got blown up by an IDI? So don't tell me about loss of life and video games. Besides, you don't know who you are talking to on these blogs and don't know anything about them so you may want to be a little more curtious before you make assumtions about people. So there's no reason to call me a child and make cutting remarks like that, and chill out.

weekapaug05, maybe you need to make it more obvious when you are making a joke. I've read some of your other replies to other posts and you didn't appear (in this case) to be joking to me, either. I think I have a pretty keen sense of humor and your sarcasm wasn't really clear. It sounded like you were making fun of the whole situation.

Nobody (I hope) thinks anything that's goin' on over there is a joke, but one of the ways people deal with things is through sarcasm. I get that. But when you read things in print, it's hard to get the "joke" inflection unless you point it out. I know, takes a little bit away when you have to explain yourself, but unless you want to be misunderstood in writing....it's a necessary evil...HA...see?

Yeah they really do need to make a sacastic font or something. I run into this problem a lot when writing emails and things of that nature. Pink and I are going to cut an album this fall called "Misunderstood Again" ... look for it around mid-April, Ted Nugent and Ian Scott is guest staring on a few tracks.

Cool! I'll be listening for it. I'm sure it'll be a chart buster. Can't go wrong with Ted and..uh...Ian? Ian went right over my head I guess. I know who he is, I just don't get the connection. Or maybe that was your ironicalness showing it's weird head? But that was good, man. See? Ya gotta let people know in an obsure way that you are jokin' around.

Man, the only thing I have to disagree with you about is the reasoning behind why France, Germany, etc. aren't solidly behind us. They don't really believe we (they) can resolve this diplomatically. Three words....they are afraid. They still remember WWII and they don't want it again.

Churchill was right. Just go look at the death stats. We've barely scratched the surface of the lives that were lost during WWII (civilian and military combined) compared to the numbers since, and including, 9/11. We are doing the right thing.

As far as Kerry goes, who cares what he thinks? He jumps on the bandwagon of whatever is popular at any given second. Right now, he knows his best chances at getting elected in 2008 is to go along with whatever Bush is backing. Otherwise, (as far as he can tell) we'll have another Republican president until at least 2012.