*Most of today's foreign workers come from the Asian subcontinent, the Philippines and other Arab countries. Many of these people are employed in unskilled jobs traditionally shunned by Saudis.*

Foxy, this is from :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3024081.stm

Fact is that there are 5 million foreign workers in just Saudi
Arabia, as the young might be unemployed, but they refuse to take
the crappy jobs, so leave them for foreigners. Its much the same
in other parts of the Gulf. All that building work in places like
Dubai, nearly all foreigners, the Arabs don't want those kinds
of jobs.

Those many mosques built around the world, including the payment
for the wages of Imams, have been from Saudi Arabia. Their form
of Islam, Wahabism, is quite hostile compared to other forms.

I'm not sure what your point is about Kashmir.

Yes, some muslims reject Westernisation and globalisation, but its
by no means an overwhelming majority. Just look at the divisions
in Pakistan. They have their share of religious nuts, as we have
our share. Only their share are happy to use force to achieve
their objectives, unlike ours, who just complain but accept
democracy.

This is the problem with Islam, its an extremely political religion
and always was.

We continue to tip toe around the issue.
Not truly addressing the issue, well some of us are not.
Yes poverty is a big part.
Education bad and not true is too.
Western actions?
Yes for a very long time France Germany England, all long before America, and as bad.
Like we used China the world used the middle east, Holland, Spain, many country's.
Indonesia was used.
But we once had a white Australia policy, we no longer do, do we understand the hate still generated by the Crusades?
Or that it would be tens no hundreds of generations ago, that our ancestors took part in that?
In this big world, moving so very much to be a better world, hate for us is generated by a religion that calls for our death.
Yes the Bible does too, but every single day, every minute, females are living and dieing in a hell created by a book.
examinator, mate, do not forget freedoms rights, a chance to live well, are often denied in the name of Gods, a tool of the rich.

runner asks about Christian fundamentalism. Surely it is the same as Islamic fundamentalism or any other variety. Anyone who kills in the name of their religion or commits other acts of atrocities (child rape and kidnapping) in the name of their religion would rate being labelled a fundamentalist.

I tend to think the more isolationist a cult the more fundamentalist. They are generally those who will entertain no other belief system as being valid to another culture or group of people and will go so far as to dehumanise them to validate their own treatment of that culture.

And they would never entertain the thought that their own version of history may actually be wrong althought that in itself probably does not make a fundamentalist.

King Hazza's comments resonate most strongly. Sometimes to end an era of tyranny the countrymen and women need to be the instruments of change. Interference by the West usually leads to a puppet government who hold no interest in the welfare of their own people but the interests of other nations. And in many cases corruption and theft are rampant such as in Afghanistan where hordes of US aid money has not been allocated to designated programs like building schools, but to feather the nests of the new elites.

The fundamentalist humanist win hands down by Pelican's definition. With up to 100000 unborn babies massacred in Australia alone each year Hitler looks like a saint. Seems to me that the fundamental teachings of Christ are by far the most peaceful when it comes to violence. Islam and secularism both kill without conscience.

Agree completely Pelican- the puppet governments of the past would definitely not help (not to mention drastically decrease the enthusiasm over there for a pro-western party- everyone suspicious they might be puppets themselves).

So in a way the lack of change is solidified further.

Here's something interesting from
Thomas L. Friedman:

"Up until 9/11, America treated the Arab world
basically as a collection of big gas stations -
the Saudi station, the Libyan station, the
Kuwait station... 'Guys,' we told them - it was
only guys we talked to - 'here's the deal: Keep
your pumps open, keep your prices low, and don't
bother the Jews too much, and you can do whatever
you want out back. You can treat your women badly.
You can deprive your people of whatever civil rights
you like. You can print whatever crazy conspiracy
theories about us you like..."

Well on 9/11 the US got hit with all the pathologies
going on "out back."
Unfortunately the US did virtually nothing to reduce
their dependence on oil, or reduce the price of oil,
as part of a strategy to weaken those forces out back
and beneath the surface. The US bet everything on
the quick success of the Iraq invasion.

Today, no one knows how the Iraq saga is going to end.

But as Friedman points out:

"There are two things for sure...One is that the need
to drive reform in the Arab-Muslim world is as vital
as ever - educational reform, empowerment of women,
religious modernisation, and more consensual politics.
The other is that no matter what happens in Iraq, the
US is not going to invade another Arab-Muslim country
in the name of reform any time soon. We need to find
another way to partner with people there to change the
context out back."

Friedman believes that the best post-Iraq strategy for
driving reform in the Persian Gulf is to bring down the
global price of oil - be developing clean power alternatives-
and then count on the forces of globalization from the outside
and economci pressures from the inside to push the
leaders of these countries to change.

He believes that if the price of oil was half of what
it is today, these regimes would not be able to
resist political and religious modernization so easily.