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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: h0db who wrote (128673)	4/8/2004 11:06:23 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

After all, for centuries before the age of European expansion, the Islamic world was the antithesis of "economically stagnant and repressed." Absolutely right.. given the context of the religious intolerance in Catholic Europe and the concept of "divine right of kings" to rule those nation/states. A hundred or more years of Turkish and European colonialism seems to have been a pretty big root cause of the current condition of the Middle East. And again you're right.. Try 400+ years of Turkish rule. campus.northpark.edu And try understanding that each and every nation in the mid-east was artificially created by the British and French colonial powers after the defeat of the Ottoman's in 1918. And try understanding the difficulty of 1.) creating a national identity for the disparate cultures and tribal elements residing within these borders and 2.) creating progressive change and a political and economic system that unifies these rival, and often mutually hostile, cultures together into a moderate and modern society. Look at the turmoil and conflict that existed within Western Europe as it struggled to secularize their society and diminish the power of an often corrupt and domineering church leadership unwilling to advance the sciences and enlightened thought (sorry Catholics, I'm just calling it as I see it). And now look at the muslim faith, where there is no real heirarchy of religious authority that unifies them all. In fact, the muslim faith strongly resembles the protestant movements which are often drastically different in their belief systems and rituals (pentacostals versus methodists or lutherans are a great example).. So what we have are groups of religious clerics, most being moderate, but challenged by an activist and violent militant groups of rivals, all vying to influence and dominate large segments of a restless and youthful Arab demographic who are looking for inspiration and meaning in their lives. It is a civil war within Islam and moderates, in general being peaceful and tolerant, are finding themselves increasingly unable to draw large groups of disenchanted muslim youths looking for activist change to deal with the corruption and decadence they see within the current political leadership of the region. Funny thing is, as harebrained as that plan is, it is more of a plan that the Bush Administration has so far elaborated. Funny thing... I've been sitting here listening to Condie Rice and she stated almost exactly what I've been asserting.. That we had two choices in dealing with 9/11.. We could take on a narrow focus to our retaliation and deal strictly with Al-Qaeda, or we could take a broader, more dangerous and long-term, approach of trying to advance democratic values and positive change in the region. I wasn't talking about where is money came from; Bin Laden is a general in the employ of even more powerful and wealthy individuals.. We will eventually nail Bin Laden. But who I really want to nail are those who provided him political, financial, and operational support. Hawk