Your post, if bracketed by the context of the title, assumes that we’re only focusing on nations with strong Islamic backgrounds. Well, no, that’s not quite true.
You see, the ONLY goal of the government of the USA is the wellbeing of its citizens. Folks won’t stand for a government which ignores their needs. The two goals of the Department of Defence is to protect the citizens of the USA (and to a much lesser extent, her allies) and to project force across the world, that way the government (with its ONE (1) goal) may further the wellbeing (SIC?) of its citizens.
Now, back to your post. You seem to be pushing the idea that a small number of warhawks in government (I’m assuming epitomized by Bush and his supporters) are using fear of terror attacks to legitamize our going to war against countries which support (or are believed to support) terrorism and/or may (or may not) pose a signifigant threat to the citizens of the US and the free world (as was the case in Iraq.) Please correct me if I’m wrong on this.
Unfortunately, since you also seem to seek righteous (SIC) indignation against war by an ‘autocracy’ of these hawks, let me remind you of a few things in our (the USA’s) past which, well, show that it hasn’t just been the mad mujhallas of Iran or the mustachoed Ba’athists or the uber-conservative Taliban.
In 1941, in direct response to an attack against the US by a foreign power, we threw in on the side of the British and French and Russians to kick the piss out of facism in all its forms. Four years and 300,000 dead later, the US and her allies stood triumphantly on the ruins of Germany and Japan, confident that these nations would never again threaten the world peace. And we did so because the CITIZENS were afraid, and rightly so of the Nazis and Imperial Japan.
Then there is the Cold War. See, back from 1947 until the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991, we had this thing called the Cold War. It was pretty bad. At one point, across the world, over 11,000 nuclear warheads were pointed at various cities and military instillations, and ONE serious fuckup would, in the course of about fourty minutes, bring the end of the world. Billions dead. That’s Billions. With a B. You know, 1,000,000,000 and then some? And the government of the USA did everything it could to prevent the Evil Empire of the Iron Curtain from absolutely fucking us up, taking us over, and turning the USA into another ‘workers paradise.’ We spent money, we armed troops, we went to war fighting the forces of Marxism-Leninism worldwide to prevent the spread of this disease. The government protected the citizens through a huge fucking military establishment which could kill in the Billions (there’s that B word again) in a matter of minutes. And it did so because the CITIZENS were afraid, and rightly so of the Soviets.
In 1987, the USAF and USN bombed the everloving shit out of Libya. Libya, which until that point was a training camp for revolutionaries (both Communist and other) and various generic enemies of the citizens of the USA (and her allies). Colonel Quadaffi stood proudly, profaning the Great Satan and in the end, stood back as a broken and beaten man who now seeks to slowly reach to that same Great Satan for some shreads of peace and friendship. And the bombing did so occur because the CITIZENS were afraid, and rightly so of the evils lurking in the sands of Libya.
In 1990, over a half-million Americans made their homes in Saudi Arabia and in the Persian Gulf. We stood shoulder to shoulder with other peace loving nations including Syria, Egypt, and Afghanistan (including a force of mujahadeen led by none other than Osama Bin-Laden) to force an evil and monsterous force back from a soverign nation which was and remains our friend, Kuwait. After a twenty-two day air campaign, and a four day ground war, Saddam Hussein and Iraq were beaten and ruined. We had, in a time where one of our friends needed us, fought against a tyrant. We drove him back. The CITIZENS of America and her allies did so because we knew we were RIGHT, and rightly so.
On 11/September/2001, over 2,500 Americans died as terrorists piloted aircraft into the South and North towers of the World Trade Center, into the southeastern facing of ring E in that fortress which is the Pentagon, and attempted to attack a fourth, still unknown target and were thwarted. The CITIZENS of America were afraid, and within months we had crushed a rogue government which supported those who would treaten the CITIZENS of the USA and her allies.
And of course, in 2003, Saddam Hussein once again was beaten by America, because her CITIZENS believed that they were threatened.
You see the government, those duly elected individuals whom you and I voted for (or against) and who represent us to the rest of the nation and the world, have time and time again used the might of American industry, spirit, and military power to crush before us those who would threaten the CITIZENS of our nation. We don’t go after Islamic nations. The USA will always give a black eye and broken nose to ANYONE who dares fuck with her CITIZENS, Islamic or not. If China were to rattle its sabre at the USA, we can point to OUR uranium and plutonium tipped daggers and remind them of their place. If Russia were to ever again threaten the USA, we and our allies can line up at the border and remind them of why there is but ONE superpower and why our former enemies want to make good. And if any piss-ant Islamic nation should seek to support those who would threaten the CITIZENS of the USA and her allies, well, we’ve already got the forces in place. Why not.