Lets have the guts to say what many of the intellectual Left have up until now only been thinking. The reality of the war against terrorism is that the "enemy" doesn't give a damm for our understanding of their motives, empathy for the viewpoint or sympathy with their aims. Al Quada and its children is commited to one simple never varying goal, the establishment of an Islamic world. Nothing more nothing less. The US and others is attacked because it represents the biggest single obstacle to that aim.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" has never been more wrong in this case. Radical Islam is as much a threat to my Muslim neighbour as it is to the rest of us. Take the time to read the translation of Osama Bin Laden has said,

He is waging war against the West because it is stopping his aim of having the whole of the Middle East rules by clerics.
The issue of Palestine will be solved by the death of every Jew, he doesn't want a compromise, a sharing of Jeruselam, a twin state solution - he wants every Jew dead
Non Muslims have no value, either they submit to the will of Allah or they die
Women should be veiled and do not need to learn to read, Men can read them the Koran

Those in Iraq still fighting are followers of this philosophy, they are not some glorious defenders of their homeland as some on the Left would like to imagine them. They seek a fundamentalist Islamic state in the model of Iran. Imagine an Iraq run by them, what do you think is better for the long term in Iraq, an elected Iraqi government backed by US and UK forces or a bloodbath of religious inspired hatred ? "Bring the Troops Home" would cause that.

It is too easy to say the invasion of Iraq was "all about oil", what is quickly forgotten is that the West could get all the oil it wanted from Iraq without invasion, Iraq was keen to sell it, desperate to sell it. Saddam Hussain signed an agreement with the French oil giant ElfTotal only a couple of months before the invasion (hence real Chirac's objection to the war) and would have happily signed one with any of the UK or US oil companies if they had offered as much as the French. The US invaded Iraq for the reason it knows and most military analysts have known for years, Iran. Iran has been the biggest threat to Middle Eastern peace for years, it sponsers terrorism, it seeks nuclear weapons and it has had a succession of radical Islamic leaders culminating in the present one who subscribes to a belief in the return of the Fourth Prophet and a Muslim world by force. By having troops i Iraq on the Iranian border the US and UK know they can control Iranian expansionist wishes and cause enough problems for the leadership to prevent further problems. The US doesn't need to invade Iran (and it won't) it just needs to be in site. The US, Polish and UK troops on the Iranian border and not there as a preperation for invasion they are there to say to Tehran "look at us" .

Radical Islam (not mainstream) represents the biggest threat to global security since the end of the Cold War, it will be a fight our children will have to inherit but fight it we must or the consequences are too terrible to contemplate. The consequences for a "human rights" loving, take to the streets when I don't like something, diversity embracing, animal rights esposing left of centre radical or anarchist will be worse.