try as i might to ignore this thread, it won't leave the screen. the starting post was at once incredibly ignorant and surprisingly astute and i find myself compelled to clarify. at least i can state the obvious.

the simple fact of the matter is that most all religion is merely a primitive form of politics, the politics of the absolute. where christianity's western base has advanced through industrialization, the cultures surrounding islam have become stagnant. while the west and the east built cultures based on this industrialization, the middle east was considered little more than a way station. until we found a use for oil. once those massive oil reserves were discovered the west realized their value and the games began.

those games of corporate greed and political corruption seem to be what have brought us to this sorrowful pass. billions of dollars were pumped into the area, money for pipelines, money for ports, money for roads, money to grease the palms of leaders who were little more than warlords. everything for business and nothing for people. to protect these massive expenditures despotic regimes were set in place. crushing the populace or doling out crumbs, these petty dictators grew fat off the west's desire for their nations' resources and insulated themselves from their populations' despair with palaces and luxuries imported from the west. their children were sent off to western universities while their subjects wallowed in ignorance and the gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots" grew wider and wider. all of it supported by an international lust for power and control. where trouble arose, western interests were always there to prop up an ailing tyranny with a fresh supply of arms and the technology to quash resistance.

as is always the case, tyrants fell. the unwashed masses will always rebel against their masters and as the despots fled, a power vacuum grew. where would the people find leaders to guide them in their new found freedom? where would they find men with the education necessary to operate their economies? the church, of course. even the limited education provided by religion is better than the total lack of experience found in the masses and islamic clerics were more than willing to step into the shoes of their former masters. thus is modern theocracy born.

so now we are back to political islam. created to rule over a population trapped in the 17th century, armed to the teeth with western technology and thrust into the modern world. where is such a creature to go for guidance, but to the glory of its past. they have reached back into their history to when they were the prosperous traders to the world and even further back to the times of conquest when their military might was nearly unequaled to make sense of a world from which they have been largely excluded. by expanding on the teachings of their faith, they see themselves as the true masters of the world instead of its backward stepchildren. they see themselves as fighting against those who had propped up their former oppressors, not as petty criminal terrorizing innocent populations. for decades the west has used the ancient arabic traditions of graft and corruption for profit, now the children of islam are using those same traditions to undermine the power of more culturally advanced nations who would like to believe themselves to be beyond such primitive devices.

our war is not with islam. it is with the ignorance that we ourselves have helped to foster in the oil rich deserts of the middle east. we now find ourselves faced with our own past. political islam is no better or worse than the political christianity of the middle ages, but in this age of instant everything its proponents are much more lethal than the crusaders of our history. we have helped to create this situation and "turning the deserts to glass" is not an acceptable option. we cannot crush these backward philosophies, we must somehow find a way to incorporate them into the international community.

this is, of course, an oversimplification of history. it doesn't take into account zionist fanaticism (excuse the redundancy), personal grudges, internal grievances or a score of other factors; but the basic historical framework is there. i'm no islamic apologist or liberal coward willing to roll over at the first hint of trouble, but i do believe that any answers to our current predicament will be found by understanding and rectifying the cause and not by demolishing the symptom.

well i feel much better now. maybe my mood can change now.