LOL Lindy ;-)

Yes, I am still an optimist. Generations of hate can be brought down to one thing - education. (Or the lack thereof)

King Fahd said over twenty years ago that free elections would elect rich businessmen educated in Saudi Arabia - and not the well groomed US educated youths which were collectively known among the ministers as the "California Mafia".

The Saudis and the house of Saud have always been resented as "nouveau riche" and complicit with America in that in 1938 the US brought in the first oil well. 4 American oil companies formed ARAMCO (Arab-American Oil Company), which made Saudi Arabia the largest and richest petroleoum producer in the middle east.

Yet, take Iraq, Saddam and the most powerful conventional military in the region out of the equation and a LOT of the local nations breathe easier.

Saudis have forever been playing to the fanatical elements and have been contributing to the PLO and every other cause - in an attempt at what amounts to a decades long appeasement policy.

The 7000 plus member royal family (just counting the males) is educated way beyond the rest of their people. They have been so afraid of losing it all in a Russian style revolution that they have always been timid with educational reforms, women's rights and all the other backwards muslim customs that fester among the lower class illiterates.

When you can't read - all you have is verbal tradition. Tradition when it is remnants of barbaric paganism - is really awful. When your education of the world is so incomplete you can't point to your own country on a globe, your outlook is going to be provincial and tradition will chain you tighter than the heaviest shackles.

The Golden Triangle scenario is a plan to revitalize the industrial base, expand the educational infrastructure and weed out the extremists and terrorists. A stable base on which to build more solid middle-east relations - and markedly improve and develop the intelligence of those masses who inhabit the region.

Four generations may be highly optimistic - but after seeing the joyous look in the eyes of Afghani girls in a class room and their pride in being able to sit in a class room with a teacher where they will be taught to read - gives me hope eternal.

I know these girls will not hate the US.

When they grow up they will not teach their children to hate. And with each book they read they will be aware that a much larger world exists for them to learn about and enjoy.

;-)

SDAI-Optimist1