Jingoism isn't limited to American neocons. It is operating in Israel-Palestine, and it will overwhelm Iraq.

All it takes is one bad act by either side. (And those have happened already.) The jingoistic adolescents of all ages start yelling for revenge. Any political leader (who can have a religious title and role or not) who resists is termed "soft on - - - " and harrassed.

Black and white thinking takes over - "If the infidel - Commie - enemy isn't squashed, they will walk all over us. Are we so weak - gutless - powerless that we are going to take this? Hell, no, bring 'em on!!"

The demonizing starts. The crueler the better. Saddam unplugged incubators in Kuwait. Complete BS, but believed by the jingoists.

Those emotional elements take over, it's a lynch mob mentality. And the atrocities continue. We've saw it with the US in Vietnam, seeing it with the neocons and the US in Iraq, the Israelis and Palestinians, and within Iraq now.

No end to it. And this sort of civil war is what Saddam was so brutal in repressing and what the US has been so brutal in repressing. As was Stalin, and Tito. If you'll notice, when the brutality ended in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the countries split apart.

jingoism A noun
1 chauvinism, jingoism, superpatriotism, ultranationalism, fanatical patriotism
Not limited to countries, can be for any group.

Arf