[Leica] Photo student harassed in Seattle by Homeland Security

[timatherton at theedge.ca (Tim Atherton)]

> You are confusing apples and oranges.  The white guys in the middlin' West
> are upset about events such as Waco and Ruby Ridge and their objection to
> the US government's existence is political, not religious.
>
> The objections of the Islamic terrorists to the US government and US
> society are religious and cultural, quite a different thing.

Marc - that's a huge oversimplification of the roots of Islamic based
terrorism and its current modus operandi. It is, among many other things,
highly political. It's certainly far more complicated than you statement
indicates.

Such mistaken understanding and oversimplification are at the root of the
current failures to come anywhere close to dealing with the problem and
threat (indeed, such understandings seem to have fuelled the actions which
have actually increased an exacerbated the threat exponentially since 9/11 -
they are certainly characteristic of the US's dealings with the Taleban and
Al Qaeda and other Muslim extremists when they were considered allies of the
US)

tim