Excellent post. You have given me a lot to digest and think about. I'm not sure what circle you imagine I represent and I'm sorry if I come across as some sort of American hating lefty. Naive yes, confused certainly, but I remain an admirer of America and the freedoms it has always stood for but is now in danger of abandoning.

UK police believe absolutely that the war in Iraq has created and continues to create Al Qaeda supporting terrorists. They may be wrong in this assessment, but I doubt it.

I think it is fair to say that the Taliban in Afghanistan were the political equivalent of the Al Qaeda network. No one would deny that they were blood cultists and yet in the anarchy that followed the withdrawal of Russian troops, they stepped in, and ruled, horribly. They may well do so again. The job was never finished.

Keeping long term goals in mind is not something I find difficult to do. I think the point I was trying to make is that the Iraq war is the wrong goal if the right goal is defeating Al Qaeda. If for you the only goal worth keeping in mind is winning in Iraq, fine. But no one in the Bush administration seems to know what winning there means or how it will weaken Al Qaeda.

And no, I don't admire the Jihadists or think their opposition legitimate, but it is real, it will last and it is growing. The political cancer you speak of needed better diagnoses, a wiser more skillful surgeon and a different kind of treatment.

My questioning of the direction the War on Terrorism has taken is not meant to be an attack on the American people, the majority of whom agree that the Iraqi war is a terrible mistake.

Your comments about "setting the Middle East ablaze" look like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

First, I know it is an article of faith among all decent thinking people in your circles that America's opposition to Saddam has just created more terrorists. I see many people willing to make this assertion but very few that can back up the assertion with any real facts. Keep in mind that the objective isn't to make the Iraqis love us - it is to ensure that Iraqi civil institutions grow stronger more quickly than the ranks of the nihilists and jihadists. Looking at the facts on the ground regarding the growth of the Iraqi army and police, it is very hard to conclude that we are failing in this long-term objective. And yet - the argument persists.

Indeed, all available evidence indicates that the Jihadists are desperate for some evidence of real success. They can still kill, but do they really pose an existential threat to the Iraqi civil authorities any longer? It is pretty clear that they do not: the blood cult lives but cannot rule.

Second, any effort this size will always produce horrible moral compromises - you simply cannot overthrow a thug-state like Iraq without horrendous bloodshed and loss of innocent life. Maturity and perspective demand that we acknowledge the difficulties but keep the long-term goal in mind. But you and others like you simply refuse to do that. What I don't understand is the complete pass that you give to the blood-soaked nihilist while each and every transgression by America is endlessly picked over. Why do you shove these shortcomings in the face of the Arab world over and over and over again while asking "Aren't you outraged yet?" Of course, you should expect them to grow angry when your press endlessly drones on about the American fascist hegemony.

And the Jihadists - well that's just legitimate resistance, right? The slaughter of children, the culture of death, the endless decapitations, the horrible flood of snuff films - all of it is terrible but, really, it's just a legitimate cultural expression of resistance for you, isn't it? After all, giving up and joining the Iraqi political process is absolutely unthinkable, isn't it? Can't have people giving into Yankee democratic capitalism, eh? I know you don't really expect any more from these people when, after all, America may have a few innocent folks cooped up at Gitmo. Let the decapitations proceed!

The point is that you either acknowledge that the root of terror lies in the political cancer endemic to the middle east - and thus must be solved there - or you should simply admit that you kind of admire the jihadists and think that their opposition is legitimate or, at the least, kind of romantic.

When Americans ask me about America's 'popularity' in Europe, or more specifically The Netherlands, I always try to answer them as honestly as possible, while, I must admit, at the same time weakening it a little bit (making it a little bit less... ...

I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post. No, I am not a supporter of Saddam. I am however a supporter of the War against Al Qaeda and consider the invasion of Iraq as a serious mistake in that war. The enemy has grown stronger, bolder and more popular in the Middle East directly as a result of Bush's actions. The forces ranged against the terrorists have grown weaker.

The Bush Administration has spent billions and sacrificed thousands of American and Iraqi lives fighting a people that were no longer a credible threat. They have divided America and destroyed its deserved reputation as a proud, justice loving nation which stood for decades as a bulwark against the kind of actions it now perpetrates (torture, imprisonment without trial, spying on its own people).

Al Qaeda always understood that to set the Middle East ablaze, they needed someone else to start the fire. The US invasion of Iraq is exactly what they hoped for.

Outside the Deltway has an interesting article on anti-Americanism, and what to ....

According to the Defense Department's own numbers, only 5% of detainees were captured by U.S. forces. The rest were handed over by Afghan warlords or Pakistani bounty hunters acting on appeals like this.

The criteria the DoD used in determining whether a prisoner qualified as an "enemy combatant" included:
- Associations with unnamed and unidentified individuals and/or organizations
- Associations with organizations, the members of which would be allowed into the U.S. by the Department of Homeland Security
- Possession of rifles
- Use of a guest house
- Possession of Casio watches
- Wearing of olive drab clothing.

Before 911 we still had reason to hold our heads up as "the good guys." Now, I'm not so sure.

The guy over at The Diplomad had the best quote from a Sri Lankan official. �Why should we worry about that? Everyone knows you Americans will take care of it.�
Yeah. True. In the end, we�ll fix it somehow. We�ll get spit on for our trouble, but yeah, we�ll handle it.

Ah, the Disney version of the episode.

Well, that's 2 of 5 right off who are unlikely to have anything useful or intelligent to say. The real news of Kagan's column isn't "America unpopular"; it's "people with nothing better to do than appear on 'panels' are unlikely to merit attention." Which includes Kagan, most of the time.