Reply #1: Well worth reading, thanks

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Imagine, for a moment, an Islamic fundamentalist trying to build a transnational movement by arguing that today "nations are attacking Muslims like people attacking a plate of food," and by exhorting young Muslims to rise up and follow the Prophet's words:

And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?—women and children —whose cry is: "Oh Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!"

For such an Islamic fundamentalist, quoting these words to give legitimacy to his call for jihad against the United States—as Osama bin Laden did in his famous 1998 fatwa "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders"<2> —what better image of Arab ill-treatment and oppression could be devised than that of a naked Arab man lying at the feet of a short-haired American woman in camouflage garb, who stares immodestly at her Arab pet while holding him by the throat with a leash? Had bin Laden sought to create a powerful trademark image for his international product of global jihad, he could scarcely have done better hiring the cleverest advertising firm on Madison Avenue.

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"I always knew the Americans would bring electricity back to Baghdad. I just never thought they'd be shooting it up my ass."

—Young Iraqi translator,Baghdad, November 2003

On first setting eyes on the Hooded Man in April, I thought instantly of this joke, which I'd heard in a Baghdad street six months before.

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