Thanks to Slate for giving us another chance to at least encounter other opinions - whether we agree with them or not.

I would certainly tend to AGREE with BL in his assessment that the US administration uses its ideals as mere lipservice to cover its real motives, that the US administration (dominated in almost all key positions by 'ex-' big corporate cronies) is really simply a voice for Big Business interests and that these interests subvert and use the ideals simply to further their own interests. In a rare display of honesty, John Bolton recently stated quite openly that the US is and will continue to pursue its OWN interests and agenda in the Middle East and Iraq, and the sooner the Iraqis realised it and came to terms with it, the sooner a settlement could be reached.

Where we might differ with BL is that he looks to a palpably FAILED system as his answer. There were times when the Moslem culture was more open and tolerant than the West but anyone who has read the history of the Ottoman and Seljuk Turks at their height (let alone the recent rule of the 'Faithful' in Afghanistan) would hardly look to Moslem theocratic rule as the answer to this world's problems.

It is certainly true that BL has succeeded beyond his wildest expectations in affecting and changing the world but his main success has been in allowing the extremists of the other side to use it as an excuse to further their own selfish interests and agenda, and to enrich the oil and armaments industries as they could never have hoped to do without his activities. The victor has been extremism and greed on both sides. So what we need to do is to try to make the PURPORTED ideals of the US into the REAL SYSTEM and apply it equitably - instead of milking the poor third world for the benefit of US and western society, and rich corporations in particular, we need to find ways spread the wealth and prosperity, the freedom and democracy, and regrettably I cannot see BL's theocratic society or ANY theocratic society (with their long long history of intolerance and cruelty) becoming the means to achieving this.

I should also say that it is ironic that BL's own family is a leading light in the globalisation, the corrupt exploitation of the third world for the sake of the super rich, which BL himself condemns in America. We don't hear him condeming them, despite the close relationship with the US.

Only when the US stops using taxpayer money to fund arms and 'loans' to third world dictators and criminals, who use the money to suppress their populations in return for allowing western corporations to plunder the resources of these countries - only then will a real system of democracy and freedom be possible.

But for this to happen, BL is CERTAINLY right that the US needs its own house-cleaning in which the corporate domination of the political system is ended - not that its voice is excluded but that its voice is merely one among other legitimate voices. As long as the dollar rules the election, this won't happen. And meanwhile, US dishonesty and greed encourages and helps to create the radicalism and violence of BL and his fellow criminals - it doesn't EXCUSE them but it certainly helps account for them.