This is a wonderful post. We Americans are different. In today's politically-correct environment, many people don't like to hear such truths spoken---but truths are truths. Like you, I continue to believe in, and support, our efforts to democratize the Middle East. This will be a longterm process. Unlike many, I have been surprised how well things have gone in Iraq. If someone had told me two years ago that Saddam would be captured, Iraq would have an interim governing body and be preparing for elections, and that the United States would not have suffered any additional catastrophic attack at this date, I would have thought they were crazy. Liberals, here and around the globe, are enamored of process. They love meetings, dialog, mediation, compromise, treaties that aren't worth the paper on which they are printed, World Courts that move incrementally(if at all), etc. That is why they revere the United Nations. Conservatives prefer solutions to conversations, victory to impotent concessions, action to reaction, boldness to passivity. I do not want my son growing up in a country where I fear he may be blown up every time he rides a public bus, or sits at an open cafe. Most Americans have no grasp of the realities Israel faces every day. We have the right to defend ourselves from that fate. We have the finances, the industry, the military, and the options to defend our freedom--freedom that is worth defending. What some seem to lack is the patience, and the resolve. I apologize for rambling, but your post struck a nerve. I agree with every word.

Don't you guys ever think that maybe you should listen to what others have to say? That maybe those who have experienced this before might actually know what they're talking about? Are you really that arrogant that you think you can afford to ignore everyone else? You have no idea what it is to live with terrorism because thso that hijacked those plans came all the way from the middle east, they weren't your neighbours. Imagine if they actually lived in the same country or shared a border with you? Imagine if it was one of your own united states looking for independence, they'd all look and talk justlike you, they might even live on the same street as you, drink in the same bar as you and they might be planting bombs near your kids school or throwing fire bombs in your window. I bet you don't jump everytime you hear a firecracker or a car backfire, you don't see your neighbourhood orcity being bombed every other night on the news and have to worry if it was one of your friends or family that died in the blast, that they mightn't be coming home, ever. When you and everyone you know, personaly knows a victim of terrorism, when you experience the loss of a loved one or just just the oppressive fear of living with it. My cousin had a submachine gun emptied itno his abdomen by a loyalist gunman, that's 30 bullets. Another was given 30 minutes to evacuate his buisness before it was blown up by the IRA. That's what it is to deal with terrorism. Because terrorists aren't your average soldier that gets paid a wage to do a job, they have a cause they believe in and what's worse for you is that the terrorists who are targetting your country are willing to blow themselves up for their cause and that's something we in Europe haven't had to deal with. What we've learned is that when you kill one terrorist, you only create martyrs and they're only too effective when it comes to putting guns in the hands of a new generation of terrorists.

Democracies never attack other democracies? What planet are you living on? Isn't Spain a democracy? Haven't you heard of ETA? Isn't the UK a democracy too? Come on now, I KNOW you've heard of the IRA! That's just two examples.

It's not your "can do" attitude but your pig headed ignorance that we see as arrogance. Your unwillingness or inability to think outside your insular little world that gets right up our noses so you only come across as hypocritical when you say you need a bold solution, with "outside-the-box" thinking because you've already demonstrated elsewhere in your article that you haven't even bothered to consider what's outside that box, that there might be wisdom in the words of other people. Not to listen is gravely disrespectful and an affront to all those that have and will die at the hands of terrorism.

You know without the aid the french gave you in your war for independence, there would be no United States of America as you know it today. This is what civilised nations do, they help eachother in their time of need, so you see, it cuts both ways

With the advent of the world wide web, we all now have more information at our fingertips then ever before in world history and not to be informed as to both sides of the story is hugely negligent and irresponsible. Please take time to do this as I would not wish for you to have live or deal with terrorism as some of us have and many have yet to. Please open your eyes and ears, look and listen to what is going on in the world outide your own borders and your own immediate interests. Whether or not you change your mind after finding out about how the rest of the world thinks, at least you might understand us a bitbetter and if that leads to better co-operation and understanding, how can it be a bad thing?

ETA is not a country, you ignoramus. A democratic UK has never been at war with another democratic country. The IRA is not a country, you pathetic loser. If France helped us out in our war for independence, we repaid them ten times over by saving them from the Germans twice and the Russians once. And we WILL save them from the islamic fascists next. Even though I don't expect them to thank us, nor you for that matter. We've earned the right to be disrespectful, as you call us. If you don't like us, let's see shitty Ireland go and save the world. You can't even clean up your own act. Fuck off.