[marron]

We didn't defend Muslims per se in Bosnia and Kosovo........Clinton allied ourselves with the most extremist Islamist Fanatics possible......

No argument. Which makes the actions of the extremist in the above article just that more irrational.

We have been allied with the Saud family since, what, the 20's? And we have, in recent years, let them lead us in our dealings with the Muslim world. As a consequence, we have turned a blind eye to much of what the Saudis have been up to. We ignored their connections to the civil war in the Philipines. We supported the Chechens against the Russians (in part out of loyalty to the Turks). We have backed the Uighars against the Chinese. We have been silent when Christians were slaughtered in Indonesia, at least until the events in East Timor.

We supported the Taliban, ignored the Sudanese attacks on Christians in the south of Sudan.

I am not really criticizing us for having done so. We had a friendship with the Saudis, and were prepared to back them, or look the other way when we could not back them.

But those days are over.

But the Saudis have not quite figured out that the old days are over. They came to the Bush ranch to deliver a lecture, not realizing that they are over.

The fall of Baghdad will inevitably lead to a radical change in Saudi rule. That they do realize, which is perhaps why they seem to be trying to forstall the inevitable. The Saudi-American alliance of the past half-century is being replaced with a new Turkish-Russian-Indian-Israeli-American alliance. The Sauds will have to get on board, quickly, or be swept away.

[Spar]

What is hard for many of the West to understand is encapsulated by Iztbegovic, the former President of the Bosnian Muslims. Like Hitler, he had written a book stating his views on how the Bosnian Muslim population, who were well intergrated to their ethnic Slavic Christian neighbors should seperate themselves and impose on Bosnia an Islamic system that is very much Talibanish. Iztbegovic declared that Islam must dominate and can not co-exist with any other way of life.

That is why we can aid Muslim regimes (note I say regimes not individuals) and in many cases they still turn on us.

In many ways, the Islamic system sees Westerners as dhimmis and expects them to provide aid since as it is written in the Koran it is required of dhimmis to provide a poll tax in service to the Islamic community, which I think is spelled in English as Ullimah.