I've even clarified in a different post/topic that Iranians and Arabs, who live in Canada that are not muslim, are friendly and open. JM thinks every one is a racist. I'm not sure where he lives, but since you live in Vancouver you know how diverse it is, being a racist and living where we live is not possible. You'd be hard pressed to NOT have at least one east indian, one chinese, and one arab friend. Unless you're from Golden or Hope.
This sounds like decent advice and it worked with Japan after the war. However, I feel the problem we're dealing with now runs a lot deeper. The terrorist organizations are almost entirely spawned due to the creation of Israel. I've been doing some research and most of these terror orgs are actually minority governments (recognized as such) and do have a charter that stipulates the destruction of the jewish entity. I have a strong feeling that anything less than cutting off support to Israel and stop recognizing it as a sovereign nation will amount to nothing.
It irratates me when I think about it because these terror groups always gain what they want. They don't have to be successful with their attacks. Foiled attempts at bombing structures and planes still make the paper and still affect our nation. We go to war with them but this too is hopeless because we are just creating more of a problem by solidifying their hatered for us?
I'm not entirely sure that friendly relations through business is going to work either. It seems to me that any profit they'd gain from doing business with us would only be used to blow up Israel. Bush has it wrong, North American is not under attack because they hate our freedom and gay pride parades. They hate us because we support Israel. We're heathens man. It's not a compassionate religion when viewed in that light. We support their enemy so we are no better.
Unless their is a giagantic shift in in the peoples morals within those countries, I don't see any change happening. I've yet to see a 60's peace movement or hear about some event where Islamic peoples are calling for a change in government and their diplomacy with others.
Islamic violence and corruption is seen every where, JM. You don't need to be an Arab either, look at north africa. The religion is so behind on times that it's almost embarrising. You have a few progressive groups here in the west. I remember shortly after 9/11, Muslim groups started coming to my school and held confrences on how Islam is a peaceful religion and how jihad is really at war with satan and not non-muslims. But a piece of me always felt that they did held those events for survival reasons, not because the religion is misunderstood.