“Re: RE: Bush, Iraq, al Qaeda, WMD, Terrorism, etc., etc., etc.”

> On the other hand, we also sort of assume that it is inevitable that > capitalism and free trade will lead to secularization because that's > largely what happened in the West. But that doesn't seem to be happening > in many of these countries, or if it is happening it's on open question > if the rest of the world can wait 150 years for predominantly Muslim > countries to secularize.

This seems to be a facet of the discussion many folks fail to grasp.

If someone leapt back in time to, say, the 1960's and suggested China would be engaging in the sort of lurching steps toward democracy and world commerce seen today, they'd have refused to believe in the possibility. There was just NO reason to imagine such a turnaround could happen.

I think much of the west (government and population) has hoped that by taking the approach of ignoring their issues, that the Muslim countries would take it upon themselves to move toward more cooperative governance. Sadly this has not been happening. Worse yet the disgruntled factions have taken to exporting their dissatisfaction to other countries (to put it mildy).

However, is it a 150 year wait? Or is there something that could accelerate it? I'd be reaching if I thought I could pose a comparision of the situation in China to that of the middle east; frankly I just don't known enough in depth about either to make the connections. But if the Chinese after Mao's purges can make the sort of turnaround we've seen the perhaps there's similar hope for the middle eastern situations.

-Bill Kearney