[TopQuark]

Many thanks for your kind words. They prompted me to reread that post once again, and I discovered an unreasonable number of typos, for which I apologize; thank you for overlooking them.

[ken5050]

Excellent comments..a superb analysis....however, I would like to submit for your consideration one factor that I believe you omitted in constructing your arguments...Everything you say about the Arabs is correct..politics, culture, beliefs, except that now "we may have a small element of radical Arabs, and one nation, that may possess viable weapons of mass destruction and the willingness to use them"

I don't beleve that we can igore the possibility.....and that is why all US actions must be evaluted in that context. We have to be highly confident in our ability to identify, target, and capture or destroy all the WMD's that may be in Sadam's or OBL's arsenal....Only then will we move....

[Intimidator]

Very good post. Now what do you suppose needs to happen to correct this? What would it take to give the U.S. its 'spine' again?

[bourbon]

really, a very good post.

I particularly like your point, too often overlooked, that we in the West are unwilling to take the Arab world at face value. For a peace-loving people such as ourselves, who graciously tend to look for the best in all men, it is much easier to believe the pleasant platitudes mouthed by deceitful diplomats than to listen carefully to the violent screeds of the average mullah or man in the street and take them seriously.

But we ignore the words of the mullah and the average Muslim at our peril! Why? Because if anything they prove that the seeds of this conflict are indubitably cultural and religious. And they make clear that this is not going to be a war fought by rival potentates cynically seeking their own aggradizement. This will be a war that is fought, from top to bottom, not for money or really even for land, but for one's own people and their god.

making this point clear and accepting it, as you have, is the only hope that Americans and Westerners have for mashalling the will and the spirit to win the coming war.