Change Of Course Is Overdue In Middle East

Much of this can be traced to a wilful misunderstanding. In simplifying the motivation underlying the 9/11 shocks, the Bush administration muddied the root reasons why the U.S. was a target then and Hezbollah is gaining strength now by wrestling Israel to a bloody stalemate. More than a fanciful clash of cultures, what fuels extremism is foreign boots on home soil. As the University of Chicago's Robert Pape documented in the largest and most profound study of suicide terrorism, 95 per cent of attacks are linked to occupation. "The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven as much by religion as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland," Pape said in an interview published last year. http://tinyurl.com/ku9ku [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on August 3, 2006]

Note: http://tinyurl.com/ku9ku