From inside the axis (Score 1)

But what can be said about Iran? Why haven't the young 50% taken what is theirs from the 10% that control? My people (the Americans) did that 200 years ago, without television, without all of the modern issues, with hunting guns. I admit it is more complex than what I say, but why so late, why hasn't Iran become the modern, beautiful state that supports Iranians instead of hurting them? Why do so few control so many? My ancestors died horribly to give me my freedoms. Cmon Iran, we know you can do it too.

The youth tried to bring about change in 1999, demonstrating PEACEFULLY against the closing of an independent newspaper. The reaction? Government forces went into a university dorm in the middle of the night and threw students out of the window to fall several flights to their death/massive injury. Students were beaten up, jailed, disappeared. Even now, several students get picked up, beaten, or disappeared periodically. So it's not that they aren't trying - it just takes time.

Please also remember that this government was born of a revolution about 20 years ago, then there was one decade of the Iran-Iraq war, where one million Iranians were killed. So you're basically asking for a second revolution fresh after a lot of death and bloodshed, when the first revolution was what brought about this awful government in the first place. Do you see the dilemma?

Right now, I cannot see your world because it is too dangerous for me to go to Iran because of my skin color alone.

Not true. Iranians are aryans, so we have white skinned, blue- eyed Iranians as well as the more olive tones of those who mixed with Arab blood after the Arab conquest. This is a usual misconception. Iranians are not Arabs. If you follow the passage of Indo-european languages, you'll see that the root of Farsi, the main language in Iran, is germanic.

Neither are Iranians racist. Blacks, chinese, all skin colours are welcome. But you DO run into trouble if you don't believe in God, are a prostitute, or are an open homosexual. Iranian society has a very closed mind on those issues.

The US government has already gone too far with Afghanistan, and I hope that we, the people of the world wake up and hold them accountable for their crimes against humanity.

Crimes against humanity? Would the killing of thousands of innocents be a crime against humanity too? The Taliban attacked the center of our largest city.

Incorrect. Al Quaida members are believed to have been behind the terrorist attack. Al Quaida is a terrorist organization and is distinct and separate from the Taliban, which is the former government of Afghanistan. 3,000 innocents (the actual number is less than the original widely broadcast estimate of 5000) were killed in the US terrorist attacks, while at conservative estimates more than 4,000 innocents were killed due to the US bombings.

The killing of the women, children, and men in the US is a crime against humanity, just as is the killing of the women, children, and men in Afghanistan. Further, the trauma to Afghanistan is greater than that in the US in that the terrorist attack in the US was kept to one day and a handful of targets. The US bombings in Afghanistan embroiled the entire country and displaced millions from their homes for months (and the situation continues to be a crisis).

Keep in mind that the last three world-wide military actions the US has done (especially Bosnia) has been to save the oppression of Muslims, especially from violent Christians. That's right, mostly Christian soldiers fighting off Christians to save Muslims. Think about that for a little while. Would a Muslim attack another Muslim to save a Christian?

The war against Afghanistan has little to do with religion or humanitarianism and a great deal to do with oil pipelines/economics. I believe the same held true for Bosnia (what are the other two countries?) Generally, war has to do with strategic interests and regional politics, because no government worth its salt is about to invest billions of dollars and risk the lives of its soldiers otherwise. It's unwise to unquestioningly accept speeches from government spokespeople in any country of the world. Please see http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0201sou.html for Foreign Policy in Focus' comments on Bush's recent State of the Union address.

How would Islam react to another religion's extremists flying a jet into the center of Mecca during the haj? Would they be reasonable about that? Or would the whole Islamic world get stirred up like angry ants and try to kill all other religions? Would every imam scream for blood then? I know what Muslims are willing to do for Islam in a crisis.

Irrelevant. As my mother always used to say: if your friend jumped off a bridge....

Your belief that another group would have reacted violently in your place does not justify your own inability to control yourself. Let's place your comments in a different context for you to see what I mean:

You violently beat your wife. Then you say, Roger would have beaten his wife for the same reasons, and maybe even hit her far worse.

Your words do not justify your violence.

Crimes against humanity is not a relative term. We are trying to stabilize them after we get rid of a terrorist group we should have focused on a long time ago. We are dealing with racist, mass- murdering, lying, mass-destruction causing murderers.

Mmm. Osama bin Laden was trained by the CIA. The Taliban were birthed from the open support the US gave to Islamic fundamentalists when the USSR invaded Afghanistan 20 years ago. Back then, Reagan praised these same forces as 'brave freedom fighters challenging the Evil Empire.'

A few years ago the Paris weekly Nouvel Observateur asked Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national security advisor, whether the policy of the US in training and supporting Islamic terrorism then may have been a mistake, given that 'Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.'

Brzezinski's answer: 'What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?'

Please keep this in mind. The 'stirred-up Moslems' that have been at the center of media broadcasts and discussion groups for these long long months are very much a product of past US support, and have caused misery all around the world. They have now struck with devastating force for the first time in US soil, and finally are being taken seriously as a global threat by the US.

Your rhetoric, at times, seems to reveal that you are poorly informed on the historical context of the growth of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and the responsibility of your own government in nurturing it.