In your eyes, they desecrate your places of religion. They act like your culture that has existed for thousands of years is insignificant. In their eyes, you are less than a person. It seems to you that for no reason at all they invade your house and kill your friends, if not your family, whenever the mood strikes them.

Doesn't anybody find it odd that a person whose father was put to death by Saddam Hussein has become one of the biggest opponents of the American opposition? Wasn't the point to liberate people like him from the tyranny of Saddam? If that's the case, why have they, over the course of the occupation, taken up arms against the Americans?

Could it be because they are tired of the way they are being ignored in their own country? Could it be that, although they are grateful for the release from Saddam Hussein, they would like to have some say in how their country is put back together? Maybe they don't want all their natural resources sold off to the highest bidder so that when they do have self-rule, their economy is in foreign ownership.

We like to say the reason behind all the violence is outside forces like Iran stirring up trouble, or it's people who've been promised paradise if they die on the battlefield. Our politicians and the "Muslim Experts" will recite this information by rote if you push the right button. "They hate," we say in shocked disbelief, as we shake our heads at the wonder that anybody could hate the glorious West with our sacred cows of material wealth and self-indulgence.

Sometimes I wonder how so many people can have their heads that far up their asses and still be breathing? What reason have we ever given the Arab world, especially Iraqis, to like us? Try putting the situation on the ground for the people living in Iraq for the past sixteen years together with the insurgent activity. Can you see any connection between the two? If not, I'd say Western myopia has gone from pathetic to dangerous.

If you kick someone in the ass long enough and make them feel like shit, then they're bound to snap sooner or latter. They don't need to be fanatical this or that; they just need to be ordinary human beings who have been pushed too far and live with violence everyday. If you grow up in a world where everything revolves around bombs and machine guns, then you might start thinking this is the only means of problem resolution.