"Peter Gottlieb" wrote:
We are in a religious war. We didn't choose it, but we've got it.


Really? Maybe we should take "separation of church and state"
more seriously here and break that link. Say what you will about
these people attacking us, but they are not stupid and they see the
strong Christian leaning of the US government administration.

We can't break that link no matter what we do, short of becoming a
fundamentalist Islamic republic. I contend that Al Qaeda would not have
changed a thing had Al Gore been elected.


- anybody who doesn't see the Bush administration, with its
"faith-based" initiatives and connection to the very right wing
Church as crossing the line toward making the US a Christian
country must be fairly blind

In fact I do see that, but it's mostly irrelevant to our terrorism
problem.

There are Islamist extremists who see it very much as a religious war.
They twist their religion's desire for "justice" to justify their
acts. But
the way we respond, and the very nature of our government, affects
how Muslims see us and impacts very directly on the extremist's
support structure and thus whether this war winds down or grows.

I agree completely. We face the challenge of making shrewdly calculated
responses against our enemies, lest we hand them cheap propaganda
victories.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM
(remove pants to reply by email)