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Hate is a terrible force. When I was a kid, my dad had a figurine of 3 monkeys. Each had his hands over his eyes, ears and mouth, ŕ tour de rôle. I have found in my travels that most peoples continue to cover their eyes and ears.
I spent 3 weeks traveling over a good part of Iran last spring and noted a population that is desirous of knowing the west, but has been under the thumb of a fundamentalist Islamic regime since the Shah left the scene. Even the present President of Iran wants to open up to the west, but the Mullahs won't have it. The country is economically "rich" like Iraq because of its oil reserves, but like Iraq has a vast population of peasants. And there you have the cultural problem. How to span a people who live in a time centuries past with the ?modern? west. The West is a big seller of its culture all over the world. What is the culture of the west? It's basically tee-shirts, baggy pants and Big Macs. The top priority for any young Iranian girl is a nose job and cell phone. Young Iranian girls mostly wear Levi's and high heels under their "black tents". Iranian parents value education above all things and have been sending their children to North America for the past 50 years for college education, although in recent years most are going to England and other European countries because of political problems. Americans have a huge potential for friends in the ME, but may not know how to exploit it.
I talk about Iranians, because I didn?t go to Iraq, but we met travelers who did and they had similar impressions.
The previous fall, I spent 4 weeks traveling through Jordan and Syria. Jordan is a make believe country, financed by Arab money. Syria is a land of poor farmers. The new President is having problems figuring out what to do. They're all dependant on oil rich neighbors. As for Islam, the Shiite hate the Sunni, and there you have it. Sound familiar--(Ireland, Yugoslavia, Basque....?)
You gotta make a stretch here guys, to figure out what your values are. War and killing have been the name of the game since Cain and Able. ?.personal values. Nobody wants to be preached to and everybody is trying to convince the other guy he is right. I submit that the debates we see here on B1 are no different than those that go on in Washington DC. The government has a huge capacity for employment of wisdom. I don't see it present. Just a lot of xenophobic pork barreling.
Ah me, there I go again, showing my age.
Oh yes, the road block. You run it you get wasted! That's how it is.
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