[Comrade]

I thought I explained, so I'll do so again.

I believe that the problem, the same as it was for the nationalistic Japanese, is in the culture of entire Arabia. Not the whole culture, when we reformed Japan we didn't make them Little America, neither outlawing kimonos or shinto. I am saying that the Arab needs to go through SOMETHING that would remove those things that lead Arabs to terorrism and, more importantly for US, and the reason we actually got involved, is to stop using America as the scapegoat for its failures to compete in the world. Al Qaida has (or had) numbers in the tens of thousands.

Their original demands, as I read on CNN.com back at the first WTC bombing, were that we cut off all contact with their society. Internet, radio, television. Because we were subverting their society. We couldn't subvert their society if the average Arab didn't want it, which means to me that the average Arab WANTS freedom, but those freedoms are HERESY to Islam, as dictated by the rulers of the Arabic world, the best example of which is Khomeini. The goal would be to liberalize the interpretation of the Quran, much as a Arab version of the Reformation, or something like that.

They outlawed Barbies as immoral (in Iran, I believe)! Barbies, that of women who dress as they please, own and drive their own cars, date, all those things that symbolize the antithesis of fundamentalist precepts of Arab society as it exists today. The goal would not be to destroy Islam or anything silly like that, but to just "liberalize" Arabic society, so that it can get on it's feet.

Sure, of course Japan and Arabia aren't the same situation, but the overall concept is the same. That is why we are building bases there.
If that is not why we are there, why ARE we there? I even made a thread about this and nobody produced counter-claims, besides "contracts for Halliburton by Crime Lord Bush."