Yeah, the axis of evil thing is ridiculous. Whatever White House handlers approved that one need to be fired toute de suite.

Earlier today, I used Google News (specifically the "US Government" search) to dig up a bunch of articles and US gov't reports which mentioned the problems those countries I mentioned are having fighting national and international terrorism. Yes, England, Germany, and the US have had Al Qaeda members in their borders, but the countries I mentioned are the ones that the US has criticized publicly due to their ineffective fighting of these things.

I guess maybe I'm equating "ineffective fighting of terrorism" to "sponsorship of terrorism", but post 9/11, that's a rather popular notion -- if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I'm by no means absolving the assorted alphabet soup of U.S. Governmental agencies (FBI, CIA, NIS, etc.) of the same guilt for their failure to prevent the attacks, but now that the mistake has been made, any country which CAN do something about terrorism and ISN'T doing it is, in my opinion, responsible for its continued existence.

And yes, Arianna Huffington is taking it a little too far with the SUV-->terror link, but as with most of her political statements, it's about 50% real problems and 50% tongue-in-cheek. The actual facts are that continued reliance on foreign oil, in addition to the environmental and econmic problems, DOES indirectly support countries who are at the very least indifferent towards terrorism, and many who are quite active in perpetuating it.