Ain't that the truth. They sure love it when someone stokes the fires of their imaginary exceptionalism.

America isn't whole without an enemy. Maybe that's why the neocons invaded Iraq...perhaps they anticipated a renewed atmosphere of mutual hostility between Islam and the west as a result, democratization be damned.

The Soviets/Russians were never an ideal enemy anyway. Too damn many of them are white, and christian to boot, even if it's that weird Eastern Orthodox-Byzantine school. You can only demonize them to a point, after which American christians are forced to admit that they worship the same all-powerful sky king as do their eastern counterparts.

Muslims don't present such problems to the christian conscience, especially given that many christian opinion leaders are adamant that Muslims and christians don't worship the same gawd (even though plenty of christian scholars disagree). Coupled with the white propensity to view people of color as sub-human, and the recent discovery by Redneck Science that all Muslims are rapists, and suddenly the self-righteously indignant have found whole new reservoirs of bile to spew.