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Originally Posted by Mazer
I'm just curious, knife, but I wanna ask you what you think is the difference between westerners and middle easterners that makes us capable of fostering liberal democracies and them incapable of doing the same, considering it was the Muslims who preserved through the dark ages the history and writings of the classical philosophers who created democracy and republics. Is it something in the water?
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well, i have no idea what the Muslims preserved centuries ago about democracy and republics, but if so, they have clearly chosen to live otherwise.
i suppose your question is a rhetorical device to showcase this bit of trivia, but i'll answer it anyway: at some point in a society that evolves into a republic or democracy, a people have to decide to put aside tribal and religious affiliations as thier primary allegiances in favor of allegiance to a common government. for whatever reason (and obviously there are many complex reasons why), most of the Middle East has not done that yet.
that's thier choice as a people and i take no issue with that - we're all responsible for our own destiny. i take issue with our decision to attempt to force them, by military occupation, to choose otherwise. i regard it as an unwise and impractical use of my country's limited resources.