>>http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=3142288&page=1
>
>So much for cultural relativism. Suttee, clitoridectomy, honor killings, bride burning, gay-bashing and wilding are pretty good arguements for the idea that some cultures, while imperfect, are, in fact, superior to others.

On the other side, when they are trying to scare/brainwash their own people, 'those' cultures are screaming out loud about folowing western 'achievements';

Number of homeless people, number of criminals per capita, organised crime, drug business turnover, gambling bussiness turnovers, mass murderers as common phenomenon, number of drug addicts per capita, prostitution as part of industry, biased media/pornography/violence blasting from home entertainment units all over the place, Tenage sex and pregnancy rates, indecency and dishonesty as frequent road to success, military as major industry inducing hostile foreign policiees Etc, Etc.

List can be as long and scary as you want it to be.
If you really go to bad neighbourhood couple of blocks from you, you will probably hear story as brutal and ugly as this one that happened in this wild Iraqi willage.

But just as list assembled above does not proove that this is who westerners really are, the same applies other way arround.
This is not at all fair represent of Islamic countries/cultures that you are refering here with indignation, cynicism and arrogance at the end.

C'mon man you can do better then that;
Things are not black&white and news stories should not
trick you to believe so.

I wld say that (like always) truth lies somewehere in the middle.
Both worlds have good and bad things, problems to deal with,
things to improove and at the end but foremost;
Find the way to recognise and talk to each other, rather then
have century long war.

>
>And, of course, see Voltaire below.

Yeah, Woltaire peace in your signature is really universally
applicable. Last 2 or 3 wars are brilliant proof to that.