Sorry, I wasn't picturing that many Canadians visiting the "black ghetto". Perhaps we should adjust the analogy to a white person going into Afghanistan and screaming "crusade!" and wondering why the Afghanis don't seem to like him too much?

On the killing of Canadian aid workers: Both a demonstration of the taliban's power, and simply because they could.
This is 1. a guerilla war waged by people who don't give a damn about the health and welfare of the Afghani populace. The aid station was likely to improve relations between the people and the coalition, and thus was a threat to the killers. They either need the support or the fear of the populace. They're not going to get the support... (see above). Senselessly slaughtering harmless benefactors is a great way to scare people. 2. A guerilla war, period. In which you take any shot you can against your enemy, and in this case the enemy is anything western.
As for the schism between the U.S. and the middle east in general... Not to oversimplify things, that couldn't have anything to do with Israel, could it? Those leaders (and wanna-be-leaders, more importantly) in the middle east that wish to use religion as a rally point to increase their own power base have all the fuel they need to keep the hatred against the U.S going strong. Sure, Bush using the phrase "crusade" doesn't help, but it's like throwing a twig on a bonfire. Until Israel OR fundamentalist/militant Islam ceases to exist, there will be no peace. Actually, even if Israel disappeared overnight, the U.S. is still "the Great Satan"- I'm not an expert on the details of the Islamic religion, but I believe we earned that label because our belief system is, in key ways, damn near the opposite of fundamental Islam's. Freedom of religion? Separation of Church and State? Free speech? Until we make Islam the state religion, we will always be infidels. And thus the case can be made that our influence/presence in the middle east is (and always will be) "worthy" of retribution. Violent retribution.
In a place where religion is all that many people have, it will be the number one tool for ambitious assholes. They gain their power from the monopoly that religion has on the middle east's culture, and from the passion that their people have for that religion. And the U.S. is the greatest threat to that power. Our culture is a huge threat to the power base of fundamentalist theocracies.
Religion is a scary thing. I received death threats on military.com for espousing separation of church and state, for God's sake.* And that's in a nation that encourages tolerance and where separation of church and state is the law. In a group of countries where that's not the case, and there's religious/political leaders telling their followers that we're the devil... yeah. Until religion loses its all-powerful status in the middle east, or until the U.S. completely detaches itself from affairs there (yeah, right), there will always be conflict between the two.

*or maybe it was because or the length of my posts. Who knows.

I need to cut down on caffeine... I can barely see the point of my own post. No more political posts until I'm clean and sober, I promise.

Don't worry about it... Read one of TW or UG's posts in the politics/current events forums. We don't give a second thought to long looping posts.

(Unfortunately, in this case "don't give a second thought to" generally means "don't read")

I read it, AlternateGray!

(I do not comment on political threads...much. But I do read them!)

I read it too; I was more referring to some of TW and UG's longer screeds.

Ah, yes. The scourge of hypergraphia...

'S ok. Ranting is its own reward. When you're half-mad on energy drinks and caffeinated gum, anyways. That, and there's not a whole lot to do here in my off time... you'll see a drastic shortening of my posts when I get back to the states.

My wife is convinced that whenever I spend more than half an hour on the net I MUST be flirting with some 20-year old hussy. Or looking up porn. She's half right.

Sure, I like that analogy best of all. And what if a member of the Saudi Royal Family went to a shopping mall in Falls Church and screamed "Jihad"? He'd be arrested so fast, his head would spin. And, as HM wrote, its not just one incident of someone sticking their foot in their mouth, its hundreds if not thousands of years of outrages and animosity on BOTH sides.

Alternate Grey is correct in his comment that the US policy on Israel and the forces behind Israel's creation in the first place haven't helped things in the slightest.

There is now so much mutual hatred and suspicion on BOTH sides that I feel very pessimistic about any "quick fix" solution.

Don't get me wrong. I am definitely pro-Israel. For one thing, Israel has political values that are fairly close to ours, or at least compatible. For another, while mistakes have been made on both sides, Israel continues to compromise in one way or another to work towards peace, whereas some of their opposition (I believe this came from Hamas) swear that there will be no peace until every infidel is gone from Jerusalem. It's hard to identify with, or sympathize with, an attitude like that. Insane fanatacism. Let's face it. Israel could quickly secure Jerusalem, all of it, along with any disputed territory, any time they chose. They've been pretty tolerant, all things considered.

Thanks Mari, that's what I was trying to point out. In order to be effective at curing or killing, you really have to understand the people who will be on the receiving end. And one thing is that we cannot begin to get a perspective on how the 'crusade' remark was recieved because GW is our president. From the rest of the world's point of view he is a guy in control of the worlds largest military and WMD's who could deliberately or inadvertantly destroy the world. So when he talks about a 'crusade', people will notice and will probably not forget it.

I'm sure that there are people in Iran making excuses for Ahmadinejad. However, it is impossible to unmake a statement like that.

While it IS a major problem that Hamas is in control of the palestinian government, Israel knows that it would just generally be a bad move for everyone to crack down too hard on the palestinians... because A.) most are unthreatening civilians and B.) the rest of the area would come down on them SO hard...

I still say cut all all finances until all terrorist actions by Hamas ends.