Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
You have to remember, you're talking about a region which has been almost constant turmoil since the first ape started walking around on two legs. People in the middle east have been killing one another for political, economic and religious reasons, or for no reason at all, without any help from the rest of the world. The only time they seem to stop and band together is when the rest of the world stick their noses in and try to calm things down.

As I see it, speaking as a US citizen, we have several options.
1) We can get together with the rest of the civilized world and isolate the middle east. Build a virtual wall around it and don't let anyone in or out. Just trade them small arms for oil and watch them kill themselves off.
2) Several years ago I recall reading about the US developing a neutron bomb, one which would destroy life without destroying infrastructure. So just sterilize the place and be done with it.
3) Help the Israelis take over the Temple Mount and rebuild their Temple. As I understand it, this will signal the end times and we won't have to worry about much of anything anymore.
4) Use every political means at our disposal and instigate yet another Arab/Israeli war, but this time keep the UN from stopping Israel when they start winning.
5) My favorite: Crank up the space program so we can move the rational part of Earth's population (both of us) to a new solar system. Leave the Earth to the zealots.
You're forgetting that 300 years ago Europeans where doing exactly the same thing as the Arabs are doing now to each other, to other religions and to women. You are treating the Arabs, (and Persians) like they will always be like this. In the 13'th century the Arabs where the enlighetened people and the Europeans where the retards. 500 years of currupt Ottoman rule wiped out any head start they had.

...and you're just wrong in that they have always been like this. There's an evolution and we in the West started our journey towards democracy and enlightenment 300 years ago and the middle-east started in the 1950'ies. Just comparing their culture to ours as is just isn't fair. You've got to give them some time to catch up. 50 years is not a lot in these circumstances. It takes many more generations for these values to catch on, and I'm sure they will. They did here and there's no reason it couldn't over there. Don't forget that we take on many values from our parents and the changes in values between generations are very gradual.

...and don't judge them to harshly. We still aren't free from sin and have plenty of problems. Just the fact that women and men don't have equal oportunities or pay, or that we still have rampant racism. USA has increasing numbers turning to religion. How's that for belonging to an enlightened age? Who's up for throwing the first stone? We aren't at some final stage of enlightenment. We are just as the people in the middle-east right in the middle of evolving our culture to something new. Evolution is constant and ever changing.

I'm with you on the space plan. Too many religious freaks down here for my taste.