The demonization of Muslims, now in our new, Democratic flavor.

[JNathanK]

44. I think arguably our Christian base would act as crazy if a foreign country was occupying them.

They'd see it as a conspiracy to destroy Western society and Christiandom and set up IED's to destroy the Islamic, heathen hordes. If your whole family was killed by air strikes from the United States of Persia or the Arabic Union and had nothing else to loose, you'd probably consider strapping explosives to yourself to take out some of the invaders.

In the middle ages, when the Islamic world was at its Zenith they were centers of knowledge and learning, and if it wasn't for them, they wouldn't have preserved much of Western History. The Church actually destroyed much of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras,etc, and the only reason copies survive today is because of translations from Persian copies.

I think they've gotten more fanatical from Western foreign policy. 80 years ago, they didn't have suicide bombers. 60 years ago, Iran even had a democratically elected leader, Muhammad Mussadegh, who the CIA and MI5 deposed, because he wanted to nationalize his own countries oil. They then made the Shah an absolute monarch (funny, a nation that prides itself on overthrowing a King would support a king over a democratically elected president) who imprisoned and killed republican dissidents. Political suppression in Iran didn't start in 1979. it was well established before the regime change. It was the same with the USSR. They had gulags well before communism.