Submitted by DRToohey, Sep 17, 2007 22:21

Dear U; I think it's a fine idea to understand someone with whom you disagree; but you'll have to look a good deal deeper than you seem willing or able to do. Your essay indicates that when you look at another culture, you are able only to see you own -- your values, your expectations, your desired conclusion. So merely by inquiring, you expect the differences to disappear. But the differences between our Western secular values and those of the Muslim radicals, between laissez faire indifference and the ferocious resentment of a half-millennium of perceived wrong and humiliation, multiplied by the sacred command of a holy book, isn't to be brushed away with a friendly smile and a "Sorry, Old Chap." If looking at what our present enemy is like is too painful for you, as, for instance, Daniel Pearl saw them, look at what they were during their longed-for Great Caliphate, or during their many years of violent expansion and conquest.

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