A million and a quarter Americans have rotated through Afghanistan and Iraq, moreover, and what they have seen horrifies them. For the first time, very large numbers of Americans have had direct exposure to the Muslim world. American servicemen returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are the main source of Americans' first-hand knowledge of the Muslim world.

The accumulation of first-hand information may explain why American attitudes toward Islam have hardened since 2001. In November 2001, with the memory of the World Trade Center attacks fresh in their minds, half of Americans told the Pew Forum poll that there was not much difference between Islam and their own religion. By 2007, the proportion had risen to 70%, the same percentage that opposes the Ground Zero Islamic center.

Iraq is the first American war in which soldiers stationed overseas are not fraternizing with the locals. Americans are not hostile to foreigners. On the contrary, American soldiers abroad used to fall for the local girls in huge numbers. American soldiers have brought three quarters of a million brides home since World War II. Only a few hundred American soldiers [3] have requested visas for Iraqi spouses or fiances, by contrast, a vanishingly small number. Unlike all previous American wars, American boys and Iraqi girls don't fall in love. Part of the problem is security - it's harder for Americans to fraternize with the locals than in previous wars - but the bigger issue is cultural. Americans and Arab Muslims come from worlds far less compatible than Americans and say, Vietnamese or Japanese.