Truth can be ugly, and the ugly truth is that there are still countries around that really aren't run by people who want to behave like adults. You have a choice--face up to that or retreat into hurt feelings. The plain truth is that barbarism is still barbarism, and a state-sponsored religion is barbarism.
Thank you for joining in the discussion .... surely what you mean is they are run by people who do not go along with Western ideology? To me this is a really big problem, the idea the West has that their view is the only good/right view and that the whole world must agree with and bend to that view .. at the very least this is arrogance.
Of course there are issues I would agree will hopefully change in certain countries but I believe they need to change due to the will of it's own people, not the will of the West. I also do not agree that because Western countries chose to be secular that everyone has to follow suit. We made our choice now let's leave other countries to do the same.
Tolerance is superior to intolerance--and tolerance requires no state sponsorship of religion. Any state sponsorship of religion inevitably leads to state sponsorship of intolerance.
Perhaps that is why God told Bush to invade Iraq? Cough, cough.
Of course we saw such things as the Hudood Ordinance of Pakistan and what it did to so many women .... the writers of the law repeated again and again that the laws were not written in the way people were interpreting them but doesn't that itself speak to the will of people? Until that will changes the country itself surely cannot change?
The problem that allows for the rise of foundamentalism in Islamic Extremism is that such muslim extremist are totally uneducated
and yet fundamental Islam arose in the UK through university students ... hardly totally uneducated!!
Now the Muslims must cope with the same thing
Why .. because the West says so? If those countries choose to live as they do for the rest of time it is not your business or the business of Western governments.
and they are involving all the world's neighbors into the fray that should be their own civil revolution.Islam must take the thorn out of its own wound ---and it should stop impositioning everyone else with their dirty laundry.
Let us use Iraq as an example ... the invasion of Kuwait had nothing to do with Islam or civil revolution. Two main theories abound, either it was due to the USA pointing out to Saddam that Kuwait was slant drilling oil from Iraq or because Iraq could not afford to pay back the $14 billion it borrowed from Kuwait to fund the Iraq-Iran war.
Then in 2003 the West invaded Iraq because according to Blair, "Iraq failed to take a "final opportunity" to disarm itself of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that US and British officials called an immediate and intolerable threat to world peace.
These of course would be the wmd that didn't exist, as you yourself have provided links for the final US report. Most people accept that most of the wars/troubles in Arab countries have been about one thing only OIL. As there were no wmd in Iraq it appears this theory has merit.
So to glibly suggest Islam or civil revolution is to blame for all of this trouble simply ignores the facts, that the West needs to control oil and has played chess with ME countries for decades in order to get it ... just look at Afghanistan and the oil pipe that the US and Russia ran an ongoing war to build and control (while America trained and armed the Taliban).
As for civil revolution I believe the only ME country to have a civil revolution in recent years was Iran and guess which way they went ... they chose the regime they have now and it's not our business to tell them their decision was wrong. Palastinians chose Hamas .. live with it.
