>>>>>OTOH, the West is helping them keep their people in poverty.
>>>>
>>>>Yep. By funneling billions and billions of dollars monthly to the Islamic governments in the region.
>>>
>>>Specs, please.
>>
>>Oil.
>
>The oil money is not a gift from the West. It's what they get when they sell, and could come from anywhere. I somehow don't see the reason for relocation of this money in the general benevolence of the West, but rather in the thirst of the Hummer.
>
>I've read in 1999 (!) that the US would be completely independent from foreign oil if there were no SUVs, family trucks and other personal tanks.
>
>And, BTW, when I say "the West" I don't mean just governments. I mean businesses as well, just like you just did.

I did not make any indication that the money was a gift. The money is POURING (not a good word - it doesn't come close to describing the deluge of money going to those countries for the only thing aside from opium and dead people they care to produce in quantity) in to the Islamic countries, and yet their people are, in general, poor to destitute, ignorant, uneducated, and taught from the cradle that all their problems are due to infidels.

You'll relate this to being all the wests' fault, but acedemic arguments can always be twisted to distort reality. If you have US family members that are killed in an Eskimo terrorist attack, you'll feel better knowing that they died rather than having the bad US try to protect itself.