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America has been a friend more often than not to you. But now you are on the verge of turning its people--who create, not follow, government--into an enemy: a very angry and powerful enemy that may be yours for a long, long time to come.

This is something else the Muslims don't realize about us. We are very, very slow to anger but once we do, we don't forgive easily. They have already lost our trust.

I have watched the anger grow on this board, and this board is only a small representative (even with 80,000 registered posters) of the American public. You can hear it every day, in every conversation, the American people feel betrayed by those they thought of as friends.

Oh yeah, and it's not just the Muslim world, people are pretty fed up with the europeans too.

One of the things that we learned from the Indians is the power of sustained vindictiveness. The Indians held a grudge for a long, long time and were very patient in exacting their revenge -- but when they exacted it, they made damn sure that everybody knew what it was and why it was done.

The US is a very patient nation, slow to wrath, but once angered, is an implacable enemy -- and has the habit of exterminating its enemies.

This is something else the Muslims don't realize about us. We are very, very slow to anger but once we do, we don't forgive easily. They have already lost our trust. I have watched the anger grow on this board, and this board is only a small representative (even with 80,000 registered posters) of the American public. You can hear it every day, in every conversation, the American people feel betrayed by those they thought of as friends. Oh yeah, and it's not just the Muslim world, people are pretty fed up with the europeans too.

Very well said. The other day, 5 foreign Arabic youngsters got on the subway car I was on, speaking Arabic, of course. They had sort of big jackets on. They were probably just innocent kids, but it made me wonder if they were going to blow us up. Did they have explosives underneath their jackets?

Of course now It occurs to me that suicide bombers have only worked alone, up to this point.

However, I'm fairly certain that what is going on in Israel is going to start happening here soon, unless they have the word to hold out for a while.

My sister is the assistant manager of a large, up-scale department store. Since 9/11 she has had increasing problems from Middle Eastern customers, particularly younger ones, who are rude and disruptive. She has taken to following them around the store to make them feel uncomfortable so that they will LEAVE. One of them asked her why she was following him and she said "It's my JOB."

You must understand that my sister has always voted democrat and is used to customers of all ethnicities. She is NOT trusting of these people at all any more and the longer this goes on, the angrier she is getting.

I haven't spoken to her since the Pearl murder, but I am certain that she will not be intimidated, rather more infuriated.

I can only imagine the attitudes in other parts of our city.

And I'll tell you something else...the TV reporters are getting lumped in with the Europeans in her opinion. She is sick of them, too.

his is something else the Muslims don't realize about us. We are very, very slow to anger but once we do, we don't forgive easily.

Winston Churchill said something like that. He said that Americans were the slowest people in the world to finally get mad and the slowest to cool off afterwards. Of course, Winston was half-American himself.