The comparison between the Taliban and proselytizing Muslims on the one hand and evangelical Christian Republicans on the other, I think, is worth considering. I don't see the American Christian Right as necessarily violent, at least not yet, but they do have key ideas in common with Islamic Fundamentalists. For one thing, both groups substitute religious texts and teaching for reason and empiricle experience. That's dangerous; these days, the Bible can be used to justify just about anything. The minds of the 9/11 hijackers were so scrambled up with religious extremism that they couldn't see the plain and simple irrationality of what they were doing. And it's easy to see the same kind of irrationality creeping into the minds of these Christian conservatives. The second thing, as I see it, that the two groups have in common is their absolute certainty that they're right and that everyone else is wrong. This accounts for their often-revealed arrogance, hostitlity, hot-headedness, rudeness, and outright stupidity. And finally, they have in common their desire to use the powers of the state to enforce their views, however extreme they may be, on all the rest of us. In the U.S., they're willing to do this even though the Constitution expressely forbids it. And this from those who call themselves "strict constructionists!" When they read, in Amendment I, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...", what the heck do they think that means?