Well Lothruin,,, I will try to clarify what I meant. I did not say all Moslems hate Americans. But we would certainly be foolish to ignore the fact that Terrorist who have planed attacks, attack us and our people around the world are telling us they are Moslem, and they do what they do in the name of their religion. And it is hard to tell the extremist from the main stream.
As far as I know, there has been no attempt by any major Moslem group to extricate the extremist from the mainstream Moslems. When we see extremist urging all Moslems to strike at all Americans, I do not see any sort of unified response from any Moslem leaders denouncing the so called extremist or their goals.
So I hardly see where anyone could disagree when I say “there is a lot of hate for American in the Moslem community”.

Jax

Sept 11, 2001 was one of those rare morning when I took the opportunity to sleep in. The wife and I got up and decided to drive to Southern Maid Donuts for an easy "breakfast". I always listen to sports or talk radio in the car and we sat through a few commercials then the host of the show came on and began to talk about the attacks. Like most of you my jaw literally dropped in astonishment. When he said the twin towers had fallen all I could think of was the enormous casualty that must have occurred in human life. I looked at my wife and angrily said, "This is war!!" It was the quickest trip to the donut shop and back ever and I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV. That night, I could not sleep and alone in the dark solitude my living room, with only the soft glow from the TV, I shed a few tears for the victims and my country.

Now to respond to Jax's comments. I must agree with him. The problem of Islamic extremist terrorism could be largely dealt with overnight if the millions and millions of peace-loving muslims would take a very public and vocal stand and say "No more. Not in the name of our religion." They could drive these extremists from their towns and villages, cut off their lifeblood and these organizations would die. Look at the KKK once Americans finally stood up against that brand of bigotry, hatred, and violence. Sure, it still exists but it is an ineffectual shadow of its former self. At least all muslim leaders must take some responsibility for giving no answer to the smearing of their religion. Just as peace-loving whites by their silence allowed blacks to be lynched and murdered, churches to be burned and bombed, so do peace-loving muslim allow these terrorist groups to use their religion and their sacred text to be used for indescribable evil.

It's not exactly a question of hate, but more a question of the roots of that hate. I don't think, as I stated earlier, that one can make a blanket statement that there is a lot of hate in the Muslim community for America. In that case, well, there's certainly a lot of hate in the American community for Muslims.

What people must understand is that the Muslim community is not limited to the Middle East. The World's largest and second largest population of Muslims reside in Indonesia and India. I hardly think that Indian Muslims as a race hate America. The fact remains that any terrorist organization is by very definition extremist, and can in no way be held to be representative of the population as a whole. What people in the Gulf (Middle East), and not necessarily Muslims feel, is not a blind hatred for America, but for the policies of the American Government.

The Middle East is not populated by Bin Ladens or Saddam Hussains, it is populated by normal, law abiding citizens, who if anything, admire the growth of America, and are to no slight degree influenced by its culture. What these citizens do not like, is an infringment on their country's sovreignity. People dislike America's stand as the "Watch dog of the world", the "sole guardian of democracy", and a "model for freedom". I have lived in the Gulf for around 11 years, and I have yet to hear anyone expressing real hate for the USA, or its citizens. People send their children to the US for higher education, they strive to reach American standards in technology and science. They certainly do not hate America. I apologise for speaking so fervently, but this is a subject I feel rather strongly about. People have this image of the Gulf as a sort of barbaric land, whose people are oppressed, and must be 'freed'. I assure you that this is not the case.