> Clearly you haven't read much history about Islam
and can only see the world from what the US media
feeds you.

It's not about me. It's about current US foreign
policy with respect to the current Afghanistan and
some other Islamic countries. The movie 'Lawrence
of Arabia' claimed that there was lighting on the
streets in Damascus 900 years ago or some such.
Fine. Terrific. But that doesn't say much about
the Islamic countries today.

If you see something wrong with what is in the US
media about current Islamic countries, especially
Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, then be clear
where they are going wrong.

> Somehow you've been led to think that US
'democracy' is the epitome of a civil world and if a
nation is unlike it- then it is some dystopian
society.

What I wrote clearly claims that the US has "totally
unrealistic, head in the sand, simplistic foreign
policy nonsense", thus, meaning that I don't claim
that the US is your "epitome of a civil world". But
considering Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq,
Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, I'd pick the US.
Maybe there's hope for Lebanon returning to be the
Paris of the Mideast. And maybe Jordan and Kuwait
are doing well.

I suspect that the Saudis are making a strong and
sincere effort to move forward some centuries
quickly, e.g., before their oil runs out. But they
have a long way to go and are moving slowly, as
likely they should.

Since you are interested in history, here's one from
history for you: Religion running everything and
religious governments don't work very well. Europe
figured this out after some hundreds of years of
their rivers running red from religious wars.

The lesson is still true, and the Islamic countries
need to figure this out. But a big, huge problem in
many Islamic countries is that Islam is the only
'culture' they have so that without Islam they are
left with no culture at all and quite literally
don't know what clothes to put on or what to eat
for dinner. So, they can't just throw out Islamic
culture; instead they have to replace it with
something better, slowly.

For Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea,
clearly they do some things well, but they are all
Asian, and I would never be able to figure out Asian
culture.

Sometimes I wonder considering Canada, Switzerland,
Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Scotland
and the US, maybe I wouldn't still pick the US.
Maybe. But I've been in the US so long I likely
wouldn't fit in at any of those other countries. I
suspect that, still, net, net, the US is the best
place. For France, Italy, and Austria, maybe
someday I will go on a food tour and pig out in
Paris, Marseilles, the Piedmont, and Vienna!

> To not cut too much from your time watching Fox
News

I cut out TV. For Fox, I got tired of O'Reilly and
couldn't stand Chris Wallace. O'Reilly was too
often wrong, and Wallace was just so obnoxious he
wasn't even wrong. Then my cable company offered me
TV, phone, and Internet for less than just phone and
Internet, so I accepted. The set-top box has been
sitting here for several months, and I use it for a
clock. So far I have yet to attach a TV to it. And
I have no other source of TV. I haven't watched any
TV, or Fox News, in months. On the Internet, I
don't much like the Fox Web site. Your assumption
that I watch Fox News is just flatly wrong.

> here's a primer on history

And I wrote on current events. I made it really
simple: We can't fix the culture of Afghanistan.
So, for US national security, step 1, put INTEL in
place. Step 2, leave. If our INTEL tells us that
they are about to attack us again, then level them.
Done. History doesn't have much to do with it.