In the years since the Gulf War, admiration of the U.S. has turned to fear and resentment. Consider:
* In Doha, just a few miles from the U.S. Central Command base where Gen. Tommy Franks stands ready to run a war against Iraq, a theater audience made up mainly of Qataris breaks into applause as the leading actor reacts to television scenes of the collapsing World Trade Center towers with the words: "Americans go around punishing everyone. Now it's time to let them feel something."

A follow-up line -- "The boys who flew those planes, now they were real men" -- draws even louder applause, along with whistles of approval.

* In Egypt, one of the largest recipients of American foreign aid, a political cartoon in the respected national daily Al Ahram depicts the Statue of Liberty using her torch as a flamethrower, its fire covering the world with dark, forbidding clouds. In Cairo, a cab driver politely asks an American to get out of his taxi when he learns her nationality. LA Times

Significant...
On three continents, Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have intensified their efforts to recruit young Muslim men, tapping into rising anger about the American campaign for war in Iraq, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.

In recent weeks, officials in the United States, Europe and Africa say they had seen evidence that militants within Muslim communities are seeking to identify and groom a new generation of terrorist operatives. An invasion of Iraq, the officials worry, is almost certain to produce a groundswell of recruitment for groups committed to attacks in the United States, Europe and Israel.

"An American invasion of Iraq is already being used as a recruitment tool by Al Qaeda and other groups," a senior American counterintelligence official said. "And it is a very effective tool." NY Times

Which brings us back to the original point: the real goal is not regime change per se but the defeat of the movement of nihilistic islamic terrorism. The inability to perceive reality, as Augustine said, is a central consequence of hubris. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. MG+