Grandpa,

I guess I'm really only proving to you that the insanity remains alive and well here. Too bad.

The examples you provide are not isolated. Just as a handful of examples of radical anti-abortion Christians is not isolated. Most of us, however, don't paint an entire race, culture, or faith with the brush of their extremist minorities. If there really are a billion Muslims, and they all subscribe to the values in your examples, I think we'd already be toast. Obviously, you have your reasons for forming your opinions, but it appears to some of us who think ourselves moderate, that you are painting all Muslims of the world with the brush of the extremists, who by most observers are but a minority. A radical, extreme minority capable of garnering much publicity, but a minority nonetheless.

I have two close friends who have spent some time in Gaza, that hotbed of radical Muslim extremism. They report to me that their friends and all acquaintances there do not raise their children to become suicide bombers. Those Palestinians do not support Hamas. But they are very aware of the negative effects it has on their lives, but they cannot stop it. They don't want war, holy or otherwise. They want freedom and the opportunity to live their lives in pursuit of happiness - pretty much the same as you and I - but the Israeli government denies them this opportunity, with the full and mostly unqualified support of the U.S. government.

If you cannot understand why some Palestinians were dancing in the street on 911, then you must wish to remain blind to the complicity of the U.S. government in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians.

When my friend was in Gaza a year and a half ago (he trains psychologists and therapists to treat torture surivivors - maybe he could now find a post in Bagdad) he and others had to take shelter in the basement of the health clinic as the Israeli army was firing missles made in the U.S. from helecopters made in the U.S. He used his cell phone to call Representative Brian Baird and asked what the hell is going on as they are being shot at with U.S. munitions. Brain responded, "John, they're terrorists." At the health clinic? Or did he mean the Israelis are terrorists? That seems more like it.

The Israeli government directs its own terrorism against Palestinian civilians, combatants and non-combatants alike. And our government supports this. And with your blanket condemnation of all things Muslim, and your apparent support of our government's support of Israeli terrorism against Palestinians - terrorists or not - you will never be safe from potential Muslim terror directed at the U.S.

Muslim parents, in general, do not raise their children to be suicide bombers or terrorists. But some of them become susceptible to the encouragement you described in your examples, as they grow and witness the desparate and apparently hopeless conditions they are subjected to. Poverty, lack of freedom, your land taken away, life in refugee camps with no opportunity to make a living. If you were subjected to that, would you fight for your freedom and rightful place in this world, with any means at your disposal, even going up against Israel and the U.S?

Yours in the insanity,

Salmo g.