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The Iraq war has created terrorists. These pictures of Iraqis in compromising positions in US run prisons has made Al Qaeda applications skyrocket.
Of course there is another dynamic at work here as well:
I posted this on Free Republic, but was quickly banned and had the thread pulled because they knew my IP address. I am responding to someone who made the first quotation:
“You're talking about societies where the women are practically quarantined. And then people wonder why their young unmarried men are so damn angry.....”
BINGO!
The unmarried men of these societies are cooped up and have no relations at all with women outside their families for the most part. I am sure that would make me a violent person in a relatively short period of time too! LOL
I was in Egypt with a friend of mine from high school who is of Egyptian descent (He is a staunch supporter of the Iraq war BTW which i find odd). While there, I met some of his cousins. The first one I met is very very liberal. He is totally secular nad does not take islam seriously whatsoever. He married an Italian woman and they live together in Cairo. He even did the UNTHINKABLE – He lived with her for three years before getting married! When he speaks about the Islamic fundamentalists that are in Egypt, he has this incredulous look on his face – it is of total disbelief that these islamofascists could be so devoid of logic. He was actually college educated in Britain and has many Western views. However, this one cousin told us something about some of the young Islamic women. He suggested we go out and try to hook up with some of them. I told him that it would be impossible with them being so religious and all of them wearing their scarves to prove it. He said to me, “Don’t be fooled by the scarf!” LOL – Now I had a challenge placed before me. I love a challenge. I told my friend from HS about this – and he said “REALLY??!?!?!!” The cousin said that all the girls have to wear the scarf or their parents will freak out if they see them leaving the house. So they wear it – but some of them are “bad” (thank god for “bad” women) and go out and have drinks and smoke hashish and have sex – a very slim minority – maybe 1% - but they exist! So we made it our goal to hook up with a “Scarfgirl” – we never succeeded, but it was fun trying. My friend came a lot closer than I did because he speaks Arabic, but unfortunately the girl just wanted to introduce him to the family as a potential future husband, etc etc etc – not the intended goal to say the least!
Then in Alexandria, I met another of his cousins – this guy is a hardcore conservative there. He takes islam VERY seriously – he talks of killing his future wife if he finds out that she had been “opened” before him. – meaning not a virgin of course. When, on the news it was reported that an American was killed in Iraq, he said, “Praise the lord.” This infuriated me, but of course, I had to keep quiet for the sake of my friend and his father. I eventually had a long discussion with this guy late at night when everyone went to bed – I tried to avoid it, but it came anyway. He wanted to discuss religion and politics – those are the two topics you want to avoid at ALL COSTS over there, but I got sucked in. Needless to say, we were both communicating with walls, but the conversation was at least calm and did not become a shouting match. I told him that killing civilians is horribly wrong and that terrorists need to fidn a better way to get their point across in the PR department. I tried to tell him about Ghandi etc. I at least mentioned how Bush is probably the worst president we ever had.
My friend’s father is very liberal over there too. He has abandoned his religion and complains about how the conservative muslims have corrupted their religion with their fundamentalist views. (His wife unfortunately passed away a couple years ago and he retired back to Egypt where his $200K per year feels more like $1M over there – he rents a 3000 sq ft apartment with a great deal of luxury for $500/mo!). My friend, his cousin, and his father have a lot of exposure to the West AND Westerners. The one cousin who had limited exposure to the West, had a lot less money and (a result of which is that he takes his religion too seriously) was a hater. So, very often those muslims that are educated in the West AND who fraternize with regular Americans (or wherever they are) can be very reasonable people.
Anyway, I traveled the length of the Nile within Egypt. It was a beautiful place and the history awesome. Ancient Egypt is so full of fascinations – and the amount of things from the ancient culture that still exist to this day is tremendous – you can spend weeks in the Cairo museum without seeing everything I think. The temples at Luxor are wonderful and I could spend days there. There is so much that amazed me. People were friendly. They loved Americans, but hated George Bush and his policy. I avoided all discussions of politics and religion with everyone else I met, but some could not help but to share their views. I usually would just smile and nod and change the subject (I do agree that Bush is no good, but eventually they will want to talk about religion too). They do look up to the West in a lot of ways. They truly admire our innovative and pioneering ways. They admire our work ethic. They really want to emulate us in that way. They have tremendous respect for us in some ways and they do not all hate us. It is much easier to hate groups of people than it is to hate individuals – it is so true. Many people there can learn from that statement alone (here too - meaning FR since this was where I posted originally - I never found out if they got the hint).
After three weeks in Egypt and seeing very few women who were not covered (all the tourists were old or married) or single, I was feeling very deprived of companionship – I was even deprived of the site of a beautiful women with the damn conservative style of dress that the muslims have! I then flew from Aswan (in the south) to a Western resort called Sharm-al-Sheikh on the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula by the Red Sea (The best diving spot in the world IMO – I also climbed Mt Sinai and decided that Moses was not talking to god as the bible thumpers say - he was looking for a clear view so he could find a good way out of the damn place!!). Even the average looking women in their bikinis (Western of course) were STUNNINGLY beautiful by the time I got there and that only took me three weeks to be frothing at the mouth! These poor fools living in those countries have been enduring that lack of companionship for 20+ years. This can certainly create violence – No doubt about it. I know I get very grouchy after a month without “companionship.” After two years, I could probably take on three marines single-handedly and easily win! After 20+ for those guys??
That creates terrorists.
After Egypt, I boarded a plane for Thailand and then to Cambodia and Vietnam. In those countries you have the opposite challenge - try not to be with a woman. After my experience in Egypt with the opposite sex, I failed miserably at the new challenge as well. The world is wonderful and I hope to see all of it! 35 countries and counting!
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