One of the joys of my early life was to study English Literature at Cambridge in England back in the early 1960s. Nobel prize author and poet Rudyard Kipling was an early favorite. He did not bog the reader down with dense symbolism and complexity. He was easy to understand.  Born in India, Kipling was tagged as the “Poet of the British Empire. It just might be a good idea for Republicans and Democrats, who fall over themselves espousing America’s continuing role in the Middle East, to take a breather and read a little Kipling.

''we find them (the pictures insulting to muslims) offensive, and we certainly understand why muslims would find these images offensive. anti-muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-semitic images, anti-christian images, or any other religious belief.”

Every day more questions are being asked about the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. He was killed along with three other Americans in a brutal assault launched on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The uprising in the Middle East and the attacks on the U. S. Embassies are clear reminders that the war on terror is far from over.  Our enemies are still after us, eleven years after 9/11.

The United States is hated by large groups of radical religious zealots from the Middle East all under the guise of religion and a belief that the only good non-Muslim is a dead one.  They have made this very clear.  The governments of the various countries that house these terrorists either walk a fine line between appeasement of the terrorists and appeasement of the United States or outright hatred of the United States and support for the terrorists.  In either event they still take our foreign aid and our money.  And what is worse is we keep doling it out when these nations are in cahoots with our enemies.