Pontificator on the bigger dangers of the war:
All this endless chatter about the war effort and whether we gave the troops enough food rations or whether the ?logistical tail? has enough air support or whether Donald Rumsfeld misapprehended the strength of Saddam Fedayeen is really beside the point. You see we?re not really being threatened in Iraq. Nothing that particularly dangerous or troubling to the United States? interests is happening within Iraq proper at the moment.
The real danger is in Morocco, where 150,000 protestors want to suicide bomb American targets. The real danger is in Egypt, where thousands of Egyptian University students are burning American flags. The real danger is in Iran, where newly-energized protestors are chanting ?death to America,? over and over and over again. The real danger is in Pakistan, where the Islamic radicals are knocking on Musharref?s door.
We were hated before this war, of course. Al Qaeda proved that. But as terrible as Al Qaeda is, it is the fringe of Islamist extremism. We could have limited its danger, or even, in the long run, eliminated it through targeted actions against the extremists, while simultaneously making grand gestures of tolerance towards, and discussing peaceful engagement with the more than one billion Muslims who inhabit this Earth. Those actions would have stopped the killers, while persuading the masses in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan that the path of the killers is unjustified.