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There are two reinforcing reason for this.
1.) FUTURE SHOCK - It is an old book, long out of print, but copies can be found on the book sites on the web. The premise is that for some people the changes of adjusting to the future are more difficult due to the speed of arrival of the future, (14th century to 21th century in two generations), and the adaptability of the culture. Islam is very ridgid and has difficulty adapting to the changes. Some people will rebel against the changes and try to go back to the unchanged world they knew. (Do we see any of that in our own national politics? - Rhetorical question.)
2.) MATERIALISM - From many of the posts that I have read I believe that most DUers do not understand the power and intensity of a deeply held religious belief. I was raised in an extremely fundamentalist denomination. No make up for women, going to any movie was a sin, evolution was the devil's teaching, Roman Catholics were the anti-christ, etc. You get the idea. Naturally I held those beliefs until later in my life I began to question them, and to think. (BTW - I am still religious, but have greatly modified my childhood teachings.) So, because I have been there, I understand how greatly the hold of a strong belief system can be. Further, the poor of any nation are usually far more devout that the wealthy, or even than the middle class. The poor are comforted by their religion in a world that offers them little other comfort. (That's also why the south is so conservative. Northern policies kept the south poor for almost 100 years after the war. Religion is usually conservative.) Also, the poor are usually less well educated than the wealthy and don't have the intellectual tools to think about their life with. Ignorance keeps them down.
The U.S., more than any culture in the world, is a materialist culture. No matter who is president, or what our foriegn policy is, our culture floods around the world like water from a busted dam. There is no escaping it. No laws can have much effect on that either. No amount of marches or demonstrations, or live protest art will change that. The fundamentalist Islamic leaders are seeing the young people listening to CDs, watching DVDs, drinking Coke, driving cars, wearing blue jeans, and (Horrors) having safe sex and only paying lip service to Allah. We are enticing them away from the path. That can not be permitted.
So, because we, the U.S., are the culture that brings about the most rapid changes, and because we are the culture that lures the youth away from virtue into godlessness, then we must be destroyed.
With such people there can be no reasoning. They, the radicals religious Islamic fundamentalists, will attack until they or we are dead.
Of course we have our own extremists and that doesn't help the situation any, but they would still hate us just as much if we didn't.
There is hope. They also hate their own gov't leaders, in all of their countries except in Iran, and previously in Afganistan. They don't think their leaders are pure enough. So they also throw bombs at their own gov'ts, as shown by today's bombing in SA. Since nobody can change the two forces I talked about, and since they will intensify, then so to will the terrorists. They will soon get even their own gov'ts angry at them, and then will begin true international cooperation to stop terrorism. When all the gov'ts of the world get serious about stopping terrorism and don't cut them any slack, then most terrorism will stop.
Of course, this means that the way to win the war on terror is by building international relationships and international cooperation. Occasionally a country that is really a state sponsor of and safe haven for terrorists may have to be taken down, but even that should be done in an international framework.
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