Quote Originally Posted by JoeE SP9
What you suggest is impossible. Their Islamic culture has no respect for anything but Islam. They don't want an educational system. They don't believe in womens rights. What they want is what the Taliban had in Afghanistan. They can't get along with each other. They are fighting over who is the successor to Muhammad. Most radical Muslims are pissed of that Islam is not the dominant culture in the world.
One could possibly make a compelling analogy with the far Christian right...

Impossible is silly. Nothing about society is permanent.

The ‘they’ you refer to is the ‘they’ you perceive them to be based on stereotypes that you have been taught. I don’t doubt that ‘they’ have problems in their society. But they do want education. Unfortunately the only organizations teaching the poor how to read and write are the religious groups, some of which have militant agendas. But if you’re poor and have no future, and are given the choice of no education or a theocratic one, which would you choose?

Islamic culture used to be one of the more educated and open cultures of the world. I'm no scholar but my understanding is that Islam is a religion that actually emphasizes tolerance. I think the Christian crusades changed that a bit. As a young nation, we don't have long cultural memories and don't really appreciate them and their effects on societies. They do remember.

Yes, women don’t have equal rights and that is something that can be changed with time and pressure. It’s only been 140 years since we were legally enslaving people in this country. And women have only been granted the right to vote for the last 86 years. Islamic nations have had more female Presidents than the US has had.

The Taliban brought, law and order and stability. That's what moderates everywhere want. They’d like law order and stability again. Our job should be to see that they don’t have to get it from Islamic extremists. But who are they going to trust? The enemy they know or the enemy they don’t.

Anyway, brutalizing soldiers is barbaric. It takes a sub-human, wacked out person to do that. But, no civilization/culture has a monopoly on barbarism. The solution isn’t to go out and destroy the ‘Them’ the solution is to make life better so the ‘Them’ don’t form in the first place.