Architects of our own troubles?

Most people I speak to are worried about extremist Muslims.. a lot of them confuse ordinary Muslims with the extreme groups. That's as daft as lumping all of us in with the extremist right wing fundamentalist Christians! But how did the extremists in the Arab world get to be how they are today? Now that is interesting.....

In the last century, when the Muslim world was becoming more secular and nationalistic, the West got worried. Why? Well it was the nationalistic part that caused problems. While the US wasn't too worried about its own oil supplies they knew that their "allies" were heavily reliant on the Middle East oil and nationalism worried them because of possible threats to supply. The West went into its, all too common, mode of supporting the enemies of their deemed enemy and, lo and behold, over time giving them enough power that extremist Islam became a force to be reckoned with. A major key player in this is the "client state" of Saudi Arabia. This undemocratic country is an ally...but it is full of extremism. Don't be out on the streets when its prayer time or a whipping awaits you! If you look at the situation in Pakistan with the rise of extremist educational establishments then ask where the money came from to build them...A very good book to give you an insight into the situation in remote Pakistani areas is "Three Cups of Tea".

Unfortunately nothing will get better until short term political goals are placed within a broader long term humanitarian outlook. The system, and arguably the human nature that leads to the systems we design, might not be able to make that change unfortunately....