Scott Lurndal wrote:

I guess I'm a bit of a pessimist on the issue. The "factors" of
discontent in that middle east are driven by religious fanatics who
cannot face the fact that it is that religion that's keeping them in
the

Do you have any scholarly cites for this, or is this just your
opinion?

There's the empirical evidence. Of the 50-odd predominately Muslim countries
in the world, only two (Malaysia and Turkey) are democracies (maybe Iraq).
The rest are monarchies (Morocco), theocracies (Iran), oligarchies (Egypt),
thugocracies (Lybia), or out-and-out anarchies (Sudan, Somalia).

If you had 50 different people, from different parts of the world, speaking
different languages, with different income levels, of different ages, all
report to the emergency room with a nail in their head, would you look for a
guy with a hammer or start running some exotic tests?




Do you think that global inequities[*], wide-spread unemployment,
particularly of the young; and some counter-productive western
policies have no place
in the set of "factors" to which you refer?


Heck, the WEATHER has a place in the equation! But it's pretty obvious to
most what the main factor is.

Some things are more important than others. When Israel occupied the West
Bank, the Arab residents there were better off than their co-religionists in
almost any other Arab land. Life expectancy, sufferage, universal education,
wages, employment, incidence of crime, access to health care,
blah-blah-blah. But being governed by Jews was antithetical to the teachings
of Islam. Today, they are SPIRITUALLY better off, even though unemployment
is 70% and the other indicators are likewise in the ditch.

Look, too, and India/Pakistan. Once one colony, ruled by the British, this
territory was partitioned in 1947. Today, India is the largest democracy in
the world while Pakistan is a basket case (officially tabulated as an
"impoverished nation").

I guess the disparity for the last sixty years could be the result of
unemployment, envy, western policies, or the difference in broccoli
consumption. It could also result from something more obvious.