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Actually I am not concerned so much with bin Laden "giving up."

I think that given the fredom to deal with their own problems, a majority of the people in that region would denounce bin Laden. The problem is that much of what he says resonates with those who are legitimately concerned and affected by our meddling.

We are in essence providing bin Laden with his audience.

There is nothing legitimate about what he says. When you talk about the religious aspect of what they say to each other, it is far less religious than a method of propaganda that we helped to develop when we were breeding anti-Soviet forces back in Carter's administration.

Between the CIA and ISI, religious schools were developed in order to use such religious rhetoric to our "advantage."

Now the product of this indoctrination is coming back to haunt us. None of this is a reflection on the American people other than the fact that perhaps the majority doesn't realize the consequences of such foreign policies and still support them by and large.

None of this is a reflection on the American people other than the fact that perhaps the majority doesn't realize the consequences of such foreign policies and still support them by and large.

The simple fact of the matter is that our foreign policy of being involved in the workings of all countries overseas, even when its not in our best interests is the result of policy that stems from the Cold War that is becoming increasingly outdated and out of touch with the modern post Cold War world.

It is imperitive we critically examine both our foreign and domestic policy or we may only be paving the way for our collective ruin as a democracy and burdening succesive generations with problems that we should have worked harder to solve.

"I think that given the fredom to deal with their own problems, a majority of the people in that region would denounce bin Laden. The problem is that much of what he says resonates with those who are legitimately concerned and affected by our meddling. We are in essence providing bin Laden with his audience."

And I think you're wrong. The Muslims/Arabs are constantly blaming Christians, Jews, Israel, the West, the US for all there problems, when in reality, we contribute to very few of their problems. Can you tell me why the hate us in Egypt when we send them 2 billion dollars a year?

Can you imagine doing what you're doing to just an ordinary murderer (as opposed to a murderer of thousands)? Well let's examine why he killed that guy, maybe that guy was a jerk. Maybe that David Berkowiz (Son of Sam) had a rough childhood, maybe if we just treated him nice he'd stop killing people, no need to lock him up.

You cave into this terrorist and you give a message to all terrorists that the US is weak. Where do you draw the line of where you cave and where you don't? Do you know what the Nation of Aztlan is (They are a group of Hispanics who say that California, Texas, and much of the South is rightfully part of Mexico, their are more of them than people think). What if the Nation of Aztlan starts blowing people up (after they saw that it worked for Bin Laden)? Do we give them Texas? After seeing how well it worked for militant Arabs, maybe militant blacks will decide to blow up some people in order that we free Mumia Abu Jamal. I guess we might as well free him, better that we set him free rather than have more people blown up. You might think this is all hypothetical, but you send a message that you will cave into terrorists, and all these other crazies with militant tendencies start to get ideas. You do not appease terrorists, that is a suicidal game plan.

My solution to this conflict would be tighter borders. You can see a thread I wrote on this subject about a month ago called "Why Japan won't have to worry about Islamic extremists". Japan won't have to worry about Islamic extremists terrorists because they didn't allow many Islamic extremists into their country. I do not want my friends and family who are in the military to be shipped away to far away God forsaken lands, but as long as these crazies are in our country there is no better option, and believe me our boys in the military understand that.

Changing our foreign policy would only make us look weak to the rest of the world, look weak to the terrorists, and that is asking for trouble. Changing our foreign policy, IMHO, would only lead to more American deaths.