I heard the perfect analogy yesterday

[AusGail]

If England went on a bombing raid over Northern Ireland every time the IRA struck, what would be the world reaction then. Because the Irish are white anglo saxon, they would immediately be the recipients of the rest of the world's sympathy.

Unfortunately, most of the Lebanese are Moslem.

What a gift for Osama Bin Laden

[Hekate]

1. Oh dear dear dear. Irish are not WASPs, by definition....

... Let's get that part straight, okay?

WASP was a term coined to describe the first English colonists in America, and specifically refers not to color but to ancestral lines and religion. White (okay, that is color) Anglo-Saxon (ancestral lines in Britain) Protestant (religion, a hotly contested issue for centuries on that side of the ocean, which influenced everything from socio-economic status at birth to opportunities for education). WASP.

The Irish are Celts. Their ancestry is Celtic, their language group is Celtic, and for centuries they were most assuredly Roman Catholic, not Protestant, and they were bloodily oppressed and bloodily fought back on that account. Different cultural group upon arrival in America. Not WASP.

And the world? As the old song about the Great Famine says: "The world looks on and sees us starve, perishing one by one." The world has a great habit of looking the other way...no matter who it is.

Now what was the question?

Hekate
just another Irish-English-French-German American

[AnOhioan]

2. Yeah...some countries know how to deal with terrorism...

and then there are the ones that don't.

[Wonk]

3. Lebanon is roughly 60% Muslim, and roughly 40% Maronite Christian.

The Muslim part is split between Shi'ites and Sunnis as well. I'm not sure of the exact ratio, and there are probably some agnostics and atheists not included in the above stats.

[SoCalDem]

4. or.. a guy where you work keeps bugging you until you get soooo pissed

so you blow the building up :)