Reply #57: Well, there's a lot of truth in that, but I doubt it would be that simple.

[calimary]

That hate is SO deeply ingrained, over so many reasons, that it would take an awfully long time to subside even if we were to stop the wars. But that would be a place to start.

Seems to me there's SO MUCH opposition out there, and reasons galore - so many that are understandable. And some of those we CAN do something about.

Look, we portray them as evil in our media; the pervasive, imperialistic attitude from our part of the world that OUR oil is under THEIR sand (who was it just recently who said we're ENTITLED to the Iraqis' oil because of all the war-waging and blood-spilling we've done over there, hey, some of that blood-spill even our own, so there!); our historical imperialism that they see applied to every corner of the globe that we touch - aha! ("See? That's simply who they are, those American pirates" with their multi-national corporate greed-meisters - they're not to be trusted, they do this to EVERYONE"); our behavior only seems to reinforce long-held grievances (Crusades, anyone?); there are nutcases here that would beat them up in the street, and who know next-to-nothing. Persians? Iraqis? Iranians? Saudis? Pakistanis? "FUCK 'EM, ALL THEM AY-RABS!!!" THAT mentality. The mentality that makes some fat-assed, beer-swilling putz arrive at a Dodger game wearing a T-shirt in public that has a cartoon of Saddam Hussein being butt-fucked by Uncle Sam, while the Saddam character is crying out to Allah to save him while the Uncle Sam character is yelling something like "Yeah! You're getting "Allah" me!" And said T-shirt is paraded around in front of every individual in Dodger Stadium, including small children. THAT mentality. BTW - I witnessed that utterly obscene, abominable T-shirt, personally, sitting in front of me at a Dodger game just after the Iraq War had started. Actually, I take that back slightly. It was sitting in the row in front of our whole party, and directly in front of my then 10-year-old son.

That kind of offensive mindset, over the YEARS - decades, even centuries - shown to millions of Middle Easterners MIGHT be treatable, MIGHT be addressable. Unfortunately, the biggest and most ferocious issue that keeps us at each other's throats is the entire matter of Israel. And THAT problem is going to be virtually impossible to solve as long as the U.S. maintains its rock-solid, uncompromising support of Israel. And the Palestinians keep taking it in the shorts. And Israeli settlers keep building more settlements in what Palestinians keep believing is THEIR territory. And everyone in THREE of the world's Great Religions remains in conflict and opposition over who should control Jerusalem, etc. etc.

As long as those problems remain unsolved, especially that most difficult one of them all, the West will always feel hatred from the Islamic world. Merely stopping the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will barely start scratching the surface. It'd be a start, though. A symbol, a gesture of note. But it would only be the beginning. You think Obama has mountains to move with a spoon collection - now?