Bin Laden is dead. This is a good day.
Btw. Trax I'm just curious: What did Spain do to piss off the Islamists? Their was that whole train bombing incident. Blame the US all you want for the overthrow of the Shah, it has limited basis in reality as the central cause for any action in the Middle East. Palestine was eradicated from the earth for over 400 years, yet still the "Palestinians" are laying claim to Israel and blowing themselves up over it.
Point being: The Islamists don't care about history, they care about power. Their goal is to establish an Islamic caliphate (using their definition of Islam and a new rebirth of divine right to rule). If they don't have real historic events to use as a pretext, they'll just make something up. Your insistence the US brought this upon itself because of the overthrow of the Shah does nothing more than enable the terrorists to work from the inside of the country by pretending there is some rational justification for their actions. There is not. The Middle East has been at war with itself and the surrounding areas since before the time of Rome. Suicide Bombs are merely used because they are the most effective concealable weapon for a warrior culture steeped in the glorification of martyrdom. They are merely a symptom of a relatively new movement in global terrorism. When martyrdom wasn't as chic they used old fashioned AK-47s and whatever tanks they had developed, and before gunpowder there was always the reliable sabre.
And one of these Islamist punks is now dead, a big fish named Osama Bin Laden. True it probably would have been better if we took him alive because of the martyrdom, but his capture would have been trumped up anyway. Al Queda and their ilk is not run by a bunch of Middle Eastern hayseeds. Many of them are physicians and other professionals with advanced degrees. They use the pretense of religion for their own agenda, which is why all efforts must be made to identify them as Islamists, not Muslims. They are different and must be treated as such.
I hope Zawahiri is next.
Oh and Morm: There is no "separation of church and state" in the US constitution. That terminology is from a letter of Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in which Jefferson was, ironically given the phrases common usage as a bludgeon against the religious, arguing against state incursions into religious activity.
The first Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
That first bit only means that Congress cannot establish an official religion of the United States, like the Anglican Church is the official religion of Great Britain. The Constitution is a document of restrictions on the power of government. (The Tenth Amendment explicitly states that all powers not enumerated in the federal Constitution belong to the states or to the people) In no way would it erect a barrier between the free exercise of religion (which for many religions means voting with your values and influencing legislation based on them) and eligibility for office or any other duty of an elected official.
