It has been suggested that we must have patience, because the enemy we fight has been patient for 1,400 years. Well, yes, and they live there. Eventually, sooner or later, we will have to leave. They will still be there; we will be gone. They win. General Petraeus' optimism notwithstanding, Iraq is a lost cause for us. The question is not whither victory, but rather how badly we have to lose in order for even Mr. Bush to see it is time to leave, and has been for some years.
The world's civilisation started in the Middle East. The three monotheistic religions started in the Middle East. Our connection to the Middle East, Christianity, has existed longer than the religion of Islam. We cannot leave the Middle East.
Moreover, the enemy we fight is not a place. It is an ideology. We could torture, kill and/or incarcerate forever all the jihadists/terrorists in Iraq and we would win nothing. Despite our President's personal attempt at insight, the people who oppose us do so not because they hate our freedoms. They hate US. They hate us because America supports Israel in its ongoing pogrom against the Palestinian people spanning decades. They hate us because we put the Shah of Iran in place, support the House of Saud, propped up Saddam for years before we killed him, and have brought them al-Maliki, the contemporary Thief of Baghdad. They hate us because we occupy Afghanistan and Iraq and have a President who can't wait to attack Iran to cement his legacy on foreign policy.
The reason's you list, Will Write, are only the newest reasons for their hatred of us.
They hated before those things ever happened! The primary overriding eternal reason for their hatred of us is that we are not members of their sect of Islam. They hate western civilisation because we are not members of their sect of Islam!
Does anybody see a pattern here?
You don't. IMO, you have trouble seeing the forest for the trees.
