[Fee]

The war between Islam and US is a culmination of events from the founding of Isreal with US backing, supporting Arab monarchies against Arab nationalist governments, later supporting nationalistic Arab regimes which became corrupt against the average Arab on the street in order to counter Islamic fundamentalism and the NATURE of Islamic fundamentalism. Would the US have conflict with Islam if we did not back the founding of Israel, would the US have a conflict with Islam as we got involve in defending our oil source against the Soviets in the Cold War and later Islamic fundamentalist Iran, etc, etc. I think we will still have conflict but at a different scale and intensity. Lesson from this conflict is when the US tries to get involve with regional and internal affairs of other nations, we risk reaping what we sow. HOWEVER I DO NOT AGREE WITH PAULBOTS THAT THE SOLUTION IS TO SAY WE ARE SORRY AND JUST WALK AWAY. I think the anger in the Arab street is to the point that they will not accept sorry and view such act as weakness and it will only embolden them to come after us. At this point we have no choice but fight. When this war on terrorism is finally won or over, we as Americans need to evaluate the notion that we need to be like everyone else before us, that we need to be an “empire” in order to prove we are a superpower. Suffering and injustice is the way of the world outside of our borders, and there is not much we can do about it. The US is blessed with two oceans, no major superpower on our borders, plenty of resources, and a unique American notion of liberty to concentrate on building a great nation and standard of living based on noninterferrence and trade.

[SuziQ]

"Empire" implies we take over the running of countries into which we've gone for whatever reason. We are not running Germany, Japan, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, the Phillipines, or any of the others we've helped in any way over the years.

One could complain that we shouldn't get involved in internal affairs of any other countries, but we are not trying to create an 'Empire'.

[the long march]

The war between Islam and the rest of the world is a culmination of their death society. It only has to do with Israel in that they are God’s chosen people and a marker for the end of times. Trust me this is about more than principalities it is about the very forces of good and evil

[NoLibZone]

"The war between Islam and US is a culmination of events from the founding of Isreal " Tell that to Thomas Jefferson.