Bottom line is when someone includes Saddam/Iraq on a list of "radical islamists" that must be wiped out, that suggests to me rabid thoughtless vengance - its so factually incorrect. Or worse still, it makes you question whether someone is using a hot cause to further their own xenophobic agenda.
Radical Islam has no less of a right to exist than radical Christianity, which by the way is a legitimate political force in this country. Eg. despite all the fucked up shit Pat Robertson has openly said in public, he can still run for office in this country. He still has an influence on George Bush's domestic public policy.
If you are speaking of terrorism or those who support them. That's another story. Hating America for being the antithesis of ultra-conservative muslim values is one thing, killing innocent people is another.
And while you are racially profiling all Muslim Arab men into a nice neat " radical islamic terrorist" box, don't forget to racially profile the white men - after all that's the exact profile of Timothy McVeigh and the like.
When McVeigh, an American, killed hundreds of Americans in Oklahoms, I don't remember any hue and cry to wipe out white male right wing nuts by bombing the entire population of Idaho or Wyoming - or wherever they are concentrated. (Hell, for all I know,maybe its even South Jersey or Long Island...)
When the IRA was bombing the shit out of London (funded heavily by yes - IRISH-AMERICAN donors), I don't rememer any demonising of white catholic males or a call to flatten all hardcore catholic sections of Belfast.
Again, Islam has as much right as any other religion to exist -even in its most conservative form - terrorism is another story clearly. But if Saddam is mixed up with terrrorists, you don't consequently smear all muslims and ask for them ALL to be wiped out indiscriminately.
That's my problem: you cannot fight a just cause under the blanket umbrella of hate. Because if so, then what the fuck makes YOU better - or right - in in the first place. There's no possible justification for us to rally together with hate-mongers in order to fight terrorism.
Its shit like this that allows a guy like Osama Bin Laden to be popular in the first place: when it comes down to it, Americans don't understand foreigners, let alone differentiate them properly. Nor do they get that those other people have rights too - as evidenced by The USA's consistent support of corrupt, inept, dicatatorial Arab regimes.
Ultimately that kind of behavior unites other people under a common cause aganst us when in fact they would never associate with each other. This potential connection of the Saddam's secular regime with radical religious terrorists is only one prime example.