Hypersonic

Thanks for your valuable post Mike ....lots of good points there.

The Islam issue is of great interest to me, I believe it is going to be a major issue for the next President -- However, I really don't have much confidence that these extremists are wanting to "talk" -- they are absolutely driven by a fundamentalist ideology -- the only thing that matters is killing the infidels and destroying America -- how do you negotiate with this mentality.

As for the Israel/Palestine issue. You know, if I was to ask which country does the most to support the people of Palestine what would the answer be? ....it might be surprising for many people to note that Israel does the most to help the people of Palestine -- the Palestinians have few friends among their Arab neighbours -- it has been extremely convenient for the countries in the region (who dislike Israel) to have a "persecuted" nation (Palestine) to show the world how "terrible" Israel is. There is little stopping other Arab countries in the middle East helping Palestine and improving the lives of the Palestinian people ....but it suits the great anti-Israel propaganda machine much better to have the Palestinians suffer -- the great irony is thousands of Palestinians cross the border every day to work in Israel, side by side with Israelis -- the situation is really crazy.