Yes, and there is a great ongoing risk of a popular uprising in that country, given the fact that the House of Saud is despised by much of its public and seen for what it is...a rich stooge of America and the U.K. Saudi Arabia is in fact the absolute heartland of Islamic fundamentalism, and the site of Islam's holiest shrines...a potential powder keg.

The western assumption that Muslim populations are opposed to "democracy" is facile. They mostly crave true democracy, if they could only find a way to achieve it. What they are against is foreign-supported, foreign-dominated, foreign-controlled dictatorships run by hypocrites who pretend to be "Islamic" while fattening on corporate payoffs from big oil companies.

The western values they ARE opposed to are cultural values, not democratic ones. Cultural values such as western clothing styles (specially on women), various forms of gender equality, religious customs, various forms of entertainment that they consider immoral, eathing pork, etc...

Now you and I, of course, believe that gender equality is part OF democracy. What I am saying above is that Islamic peoples are not per se, opposed to "democracy". They want it. But they want it within the structure of the cultural assumptions they are familiar with, which are different from ours. We had a "democracy" not too long ago historically in which women could not vote...and we STILL CALLED IT a democracy. Remember? And it was...but not nearly as democratic as it would become at a later stage in our social development.

These differences between Islamic and western views are based on religious and social traditions, and have little or nothing to do with a desire on the part of muslims to oppose democracy.

Bush does not want you to know that. He wants you to think you are defending democracy by fighting Muslims. You're not. The vast majority of Muslims also want democracy...within the perameters of their cultural traditions...which you may or may not consider reasonable ones. I consider numerous of their traditions (and of ours) to be quite unreasonable, but I'm not going to go out and kill people over it or support others in doing so.

- LH