Why do they hate us so much? Personally I think they blame us for all of the bad reality T.V..

Seriously this cuts to the core of the question of how to deal with Al-Qaida. What about us pisses them off so much?

For some experts, the attacks - whether in London or Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt - are aimed at the West for what it is doing: in other words for its policies, like the war in Iraq. Others insist that the perpetrators are more at odds with the ideals of the West and "who we are."

For the latter group, this is a war of civilizations or ideologies that the West has no choice but to fight aggressively, because anything else would entail appeasement and imply a retreat from identity and principles.

Yet for those who believe the violence is a result of what the West - primarily the United States - is doing in Muslim lands, one answer is to avoid actions that alienate and evoke the fears of peaceful Muslims while providing a windfall for the violent few. To some observers, the appeal of that argument is one reason talk is growing among policymakers in Washington of a drawdown of US troops in Iraq.

I certainly come down on the side of this hate being more a result of our policies then of our ideology.

The "what-we-do vs. who-we-are" debate over the extremists' motivations pits scholars like the Frenchman Olivier Roy, author of "Globalized Islam," against experts like Mr. Cole; former CIA officer Michael Scheuer, who led the hunt for Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s; and the University of Chicago's Robert Pape. The principal petri dish in which their views have formed is the war in Iraq.

Oh, I get it! It is just one giant science experiment! This might not frighten me near as much if it was not being conducted by a president who does not seem to really understand science.

If the initial reasons for the anger towards the West is still unkown to some, the recent fanning of the flames should be obvious to all. Our response to 9-11 that included attacking Iraq under false pretenses is universally accepted in the Middle east as justifying the recent attacks against America and its allies. We have added to our enemies number and that is the opposite of what war hopes to achieve.

Are we safer now?

Hell no!