I will have to add this to my list. thanks.

Reading some on Amazon, it discusses the political war between the various branches of govt. And even the Rolling Stone story discusses how the CIA was not allowed to do their standard due diligence analysis of Al-Queda.

>Here's a book you will find interesting:
>
>Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson
>
>http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Consequences-American-Empire-Second/dp/0805075593/sr=1-1/qid=1157785013/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0571927-9658200?ie=UTF8&s=books>
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalmers_Johnson
>
>
>
>>Kevin,
>>
>>First, your statements make me feel extremely uncomfortable. Particularly in an environment like there. So anyone reading this in another part of the world here's another USA cowboy talk about killing lots of people in the name of American democracy.
>>
>>Second, not that you would care, but this weeks Rolling Stone mag has an article that directly addresses the ideas you've expressed. Particularly as they relate to the actions of the current administration as they follow the same thought process you've expressed.
>>
>>Besides an article addressing bush's failures as it relates to the middle east, another item of interest in the issue is in the letters section. In a prior issue they had an article detailing abuses in Abu Grahib. They focused on the torture performed on a teenager there.
>>
>>In the majority of the letters posted about the article the writers expressed abject outrage and disbelief that our govt could be party to such behavior. There were 2 letters that expressed happiness that a "terrorist" felt torture. One letter went to express hapiness someone from the middle east was tortured. The writer felt that after the beheading of Nick Berg every american should not feel pity over a middle easterner getting tortured. And he went on to talk about how "liberal america" wants to coddle children. Even if they are terrrorists.
>>
>>The part that caught my eye is that this author of the letter is from Philadelphia. I don't know if that is the majority feeling back your way. But there is a whole other side to the argument that makes a lot of sense to me.
>>
>>Anyways, the Rolling Stone article is entitled, "The Phony War". The main point of the article can be summed up by this paragraph:
>>
>>

...According to nearly a dozen former high-ranking officials who have been on the front lines of the administration's counterterrorism effort, the president is not only fighting the wrong war - he is fighting it in a way that has actually made the threat worse. The war on terrorism , they say, has been mismanaged and misdirected almost from the start, in no small part because the president simply does not understand the nature of the enemy he is fighting

>>
>>Bottom line, the article goes on to discuss how many experts feel that fighting terrorism via a war only creates more terrorists by creating more embittered Islamic radicals. And because they are arising spontaneously, without ties to any specific organization, they are at best impossible to track. Hence we are much more unsafe today then ever before, thanks to the current policies of our govt.
>>
>>
>>>The Shah's visit to the US did not cause the subsequent events and you would not be justified in "any" response. You over-simplify the events, both in Iran and the world, that lead us to the Iranian government that we see today.
>>>
>>>How is it oversimplified? The Shah's visit was part of a sequence of events that led to the hostage crisis. The Shah fled Iran during the revolution in 1979, and eventually came to the U.S. seeing medical treatment for lymphoma. Islamic student militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, took 66 hostages, and demanded that we extradite the Shah back to Iran. There are documented reports that some hostages were physically beaten.
>>>
>>>The role of a government in a free society is protection of citizens - so we would have been completely justified in a full-scale attack. The sooner the United States openly asserts a moral right to crush such thugs and bullies who seek to destroy us, the better off we'll be.
>>>
>>>Kevin