A virtual game of Ping-Pong with settings linked to conflicts with the countries of Cuba, Iraq, and Palestine/Israel.

United States current situation with the countries...

Cuba:
Communist Government who we've had a long standing trade embargo with and who's relationship with the U.S. was worsened by the "Cuban Missile Crisis" (when Russia placed nuclear warheads there during the Cold War). Now that their dictator leader, Fidel Castro, is getting up in years, the U.S. is cautiously beginning discussion on reopening trade with them (probably because they have some of the best cigars in the world). This is also the place we have a military base detaining all of the Afghanistan 'war criminals,' because if we held them in the U.S., then they'd be subject to the fairness of the U.S. court system, and our military wants to hold its own tribunals because doesn't want to be fair with terrorists.

Iraq:
After the Gulf War to regain the independence of Kuwait (U.S. ally who has a lot of oil), Saddam Husain (Iraqi President) had many, many sanctions imposed against his country. The U.S. still operates "no fly zone" missions over Iraq and regularly bombs the missals that Iraq tries to put there to shoot down the U.S. fighter jets. One of the sanctions, to allow United Nation's Weapons' Inspectors to make sure Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction, was not followed when Iraq kicked the weapon's inspectors out of their country many months ago. Now, it has been shown that Saddam has been giving money to the families of suicide bombers, supporting terrorist acts. Bush is looking into invading Iraq to depose Saddam sometime next year or the year after, in much the same way we invaded Afghanistan to combat a terrorist government.

Palestine/Israel (Middle Eastern Holy Land):
Israel is a long time ally of the U.S. We gave them patriot missals to protect them when Iraq was attacking them when we were attacking Iraq who had attacked Kuwait. We also supply Israel with a couple of billion dollars worth of "aid" every year. Palestine has long been at odds with Israel over the West Bank, a complexly divided and disputed area of land where President of Palestinian Council Yasser Arafat attempts to live in autonomy with his people. Ariel Sharon (Israeli Prime Minister) has recently occupied decidedly Palestinian territories (such as Bethlehem), forcing an all out war between Palestine and Israel, which Israel will decidedly win (Israel's country surrounds the West Bank on 3 sides, is about 50% larger then the area of the West Bank, and has the support of the U.S., despite Bush saying that he's personally staying neutral). The problem is that Palestine has the support of the entire middle east (including U.S. enemy Iraq, and U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt), and that Yasser Arafat's people willing to martyr themselves to gain even a little more of, or to get back at Israel for invading or ousting them from, the Holy Land (the land mentioned in the bible as the places where Jesus's life took place, including Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Jerico). Since Palestinian "resistance" to the occupation of their own land is being met with deadly force from Israel, Palestine is getting back at Israel the only way they possibly can - suicide bombings in Israel.