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One thing is for sure (difficult to admit) that the "peaceniks" are preaching a far more Christian message (and Islamic as well) then anyone on either side thus far. An effective answer to the problem of terrorism against the US that has not been tried to this point is an expansion of the Clinton doctrine of not dealing with sleezy criminals to forward national interests. Think about it- our support of corruption in Cuba caused the rebellion that spawned Castro, same in Nicaragua resulting in Manuel Ortega, support for brutal Shaw of Iran resulted in popular support of Ayatollah Khomeini, we made and had to break Noriega and Saddam. Support of Pinoche' built the Shining Path Marxist in Chile. Bin Laden whips up support amongst commoners by stressing the US support of the non-democratic regime in Saudi. When we begin to support true democracies (instead of thugs who go along with our financial interests) we will be loved in the world as champions of democracy rather then hated for our hypocrisy. Why can't we see that we are making our own messes. (This is my first day posting-long time lurker and supporter- I hope this opinion does not get me banned).

1. The Shining Path was Peruvian, not Chilean; had nothing to do with Pinochet.

2. Our "support" of Batista was simply our recognition of the current legitimate government of Cuba - had Castro not expropriated large amounts of property owned by U.S. citizens and gotten in bed with the Soviet Union, we'd have probably recognized him as well.

3. The "Clinton doctrine"? You're joking, right? How long have you lurked here? Does the name Riady ring a bell? Huang? Mena, Arkansas?

I doubt if that opinion will get you banned, but it might get you flamed a bit. Underlying it is the assumption that if the guys we supported were bad guys, the other guys were good guys, and that is demonstrably untrue. In the case of Khomeini, the bad guy - the Pahlavi Shah - we supported was displaced by a worse guy who would have hated us anyway no matter what we did before him. Sorry, but foreign policy just works that way - we bombed Milosevic and got the KLA; if we'd bombed the KLA we'd have Milosevic, and your complaint would be made either way. If we hadn't bombed anybody we'd be culpable for letting "ethnic cleansing" continue and your complaint would still be made.

Where we've backed stinkers, it was generally because the other guy was worse, or at least we thought so at the time. Hindsight is 20/20; it's a pity you can't conduct foreign policy on that basis.