Iranians really do like us, but

[democratic]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003272951_iranmood24.html

These sentiments were nearly unanimous in some 400 interviews during the past month in two large Iranian cities — Tehran, the capital, with about 12 million people, and Shiraz, with 4 million. People of all ages and classes were interviewed, many of them in Farsi. No translators or government representatives were present.

"I hope that one day, relations get good enough that we can go study there," said Mohammad Mehdi Haydare, 21, as he sat among friends in Tehran's Mellat Park. "Americans are ordinary people," he said. "It's their government we hate. The government has strength and they use it indiscriminately."

"Americans themselves are wonderful people," said Ghavoseh, 60, shaking his head over the current acrimonious relationship between Iran and the U.S. "But their government pushes the whole world around and acts conceited. Their government does what it wants in countries around the world without regard for the people in them."

[Kierkegaard]

1. And those two examples above are reasons why people feel helpless

and hopeless enough to blow our shit up. It is surprising how many people believe the attacks of 9/11 were unprovoked.

They hate us for our freedoms. Bullshit. They hate us because we steal their shit, we poison their environment, we kill their kids, we toy with their governments like they were our personal play things.

Money and power, baby. Money and power.

[wtmusic]

3. Thank you

It's amazing how few people who claim to know why al Qaeda has attacked the US ("they hate us for our freedoms", "Western moral decadence", "we're infidels") have ever actually read one of OBL's original statements, which make it clear it has everything to do with our pillage of the Arabian peninsula over the past 100 years.

[creeksneakers2]

2. I think it would help greatly

if Bush would talk to Ahmadinejad and treat him like the head of state he is. I think it would also help if Bush acknowledged how wrong it was for America to install the Shah and to support Iraq's invasion of Iran. That, not torture, would help stop future terrorist attacks.