X-Message-Number: 27037
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 01:58:29 -0600
From: 
Subject: Re: Combatting Terrorism

Beth Bailey wrote:

>It breaks my heart that in the
>year 2005 humans remain as superstitious and eager to kill each other as when
>our ancestors first came down from the trees. I sometimes think that 
>humans are
>still barbarians with only a very thin veneer of civilization.

I am supposing that she is referring to the fanatical fringe of the Muslim 
religion, exemplified by the Taliban and practiced by many Middle Eastern 
terrorists.

This reminded me of the historical stories of the Christian religion in the 
Dark Ages, specifically, the "Inquisition."  Western civilization mostly 
rid itself of that mindset, which is very similar to the Muslim minority 
today, mentioned above.  Good historians should be able to answer the 
question of "how did they get rid of the Dark Ages mentality?".  I am not a 
historian, so I do not know.  It did seem to take a very long time.

I am thinking, though, that a critical and detailed analysis of that time 
might lead to clues that would help us understand how to apply the process 
in this decade, and how to accelerate that process so that it does not take 
centuries to evolve the fanatical-Muslim culture to something more 
civilized.   This would be a worthy research project for freedom-loving 
governments.

It would certainly seem to be a better investment of American tax dollars, 
than trying to gain a military victory in places like Iraq, where since 
bodies have been lost but minds have not been changed, there will be no 
real change.  I would bet it could have been done with way less than 10% of 
what that "war" has already cost.

I'm not trying to espouse a political position here; I'm not a political 
person.  This is just a part of how I view the problem and what might be 
done somewhere down the pike to resolve it.

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