But it is sex that I'd like to talk about most. It is such a fundamental instinct that we desire, yet is actively repressed by hundreds of millions of people. And I'm not even talking about just premarital sex. The attitude towards sex is so bad, it's frightening (Tune in to any Muslim marriage counseling show on TV, and prepare to be horrified). I remember seeing protest signs in Egypt during the Mubarak ousting, saying "I want to get married". You see the economy in Egypt was so bad that young people were struggling to pay for weddings, furnished apartments which are a must if you want to get married, and Mahr (shudder).

So here you have an exploding population of young men desperate for sex, approval and self esteem. They end up marrying any woman they meet that their parents approve of, they end up with disappointing sex, a wife that lets herself go because she's miserable (I'm sure you've noticed how older Arab women look), no emotional support because of the loveless marriage, kids that they had too young (Arabs usually start trying to have kids immediately after the wedding), no time or money to do anything they really want, and the so many rules they have to follow to go to heaven.

That's an interesting perspective. If what I read on the Internet and news is true, ISIS treasures any Western women joining their camp. We seen these in the news once in a while, some girl teenagers went their way to Syria and join as ISIS wives. It's like a huge deal for them.

And then who do they see? The west. The big bad west. With their sex, and openness, and women that treat their husbands with love and not just obedience, with young people doing what they want in life, not just get married young, raise kids and die. And so they call you immoral. And they try to shield their religion from your loose way of life as they interpret it as an attack on theirs. Why? Because if Islam wasn't there, if it wasn't the true religion, if it wasn't the answer, then they just wasted their entire life and spent it in misery, all for nothing.

Not sure where you live or what you have seen, but obedience is certainly not what western women have. lol. Obedience/married young/raise kids is also a disappearing trend that we are seeing here in the US. It's not because of oppressive government or religion, it's more the nature of what happens when you have this 'openness'. Women can do what they want. Sexual equality they call it. So, women being obedient to men is thrown out the window. So that means, women have less social pressure to get married and have kids.

Sex here is not oppressed, but it doesn't mean it ends up in love and marriage. It's just young people doing whatever they want, and usually it's not marriage. Oh, a house or a place to live is also getting more and more unaffordable to younger generations thanks to the gaping income disparity.

Although, that deserves its own thread and discussions.

I guess from a historical perspective, the question would be which is worse, the extremism now, or the USSR having potentially conquered parts of the Middle East?

Well one side is obviously unknown, especially as the USSR was doomed to fail and collapsed under it's own weight... Anything could've happened there.
...but conquered is a bit of leading phrasing -- were they actually looking to bring mid east and north Africa into the union, or just within their sphere of influence?

But, there's literally over a million dead on the other side. That's very hard to support.
Afghanistan was also actually well on the way to being a stable liberal democracy under the USSR, something that's still unimaginable there after 15 years of trying.
Lybia had gone from being on of the poorest to one of the richest countries in Africa, from majoriy illiterate to majority college educated, with water/food/housing considered a human right and direct democracy. Now they're worse off than Syria currently is. Looking at individual situations, and people, it's dead simple to choose the one where you had a house and a job and your family were safe within a society...

This ^^^. Although I didn't live through the Cold War, we don't really know what would've happened had the USSR not been "stopped". I will say that from what I've read in the history books, the Soviets couldn't 100% be trusted to not be aggressive/cause something that would really have harmed the US and allies. But it is well worth noting that a lot of the Middle East issues/failed states were at one point pretty close to becoming relatively stable states.

At the same time, while we don't know what *would've* happened in the mideast, we do know some of the things that did happen in other areas under USSR control.

'Stable' doesn't always mean beneficial to the people. In-general, I assume blocking information from your own citizens to be indicative of less-than-ideal leadership.

Thankfully, in the USA, freedom of the press is so ingrained, that our leaders aren't capable of controlling the media - the worst they can do is manipulate the press to manipulate the people, rather than control the press to control the people.

But, there's literally over a million dead on the other side. That's very hard to support.

Yes, absolutely.

Afghanistan was also actually well on the way to being a stable liberal democracy under the USSR, something that's still unimaginable there after 15 years of trying.

And our limited intervention in Iraq during the Gulf War successfully brought stability in that region, and leaving Saddam Hussein in charge was brilliantly level-headed.

Our invasion of Iraq in 2005 entirely undid that, and was a war of personal pride from our leadership, sending tens of thousands to their death, and millions into chaos and instability (rather akin to Russia's current-day invasion of Ukraine to solve the "instability" Russia intentionally created, when Ukraine's politics shifted away from Russia to the EU).

I do think that it's pretty clear the Soviets would have collapsed at some point regardless of the foreign policy of the US.

I'm anti-USSR, but I don't think it's 100% certain that the Soviets would have collapsed, or wouldn't have recovered after the collapse, had they not been in such a constant struggle with the USA/NATO.

I would say that the problem with foreign policy then was more of a lack of foresight.

Lack of foresight + changing policy every eight years means long-term planning and long-term consistency pretty much goes out the window.

And then who do they see? The west. The big bad west. With their sex, and openness, and women that treat their husbands with love and not just obedience, with young people doing what they want in life, not just get married young, raise kids and die. And so they call you immoral. And they try to shield their religion from your loose way of life as they interpret it as an attack on theirs. Why? Because if Islam wasn't there, if it wasn't the true religion, if it wasn't the answer, then they just wasted their entire life and spent it in misery, all for nothing.

Not sure where you live or what you have seen, but obedience is certainly not what western women have. lol.

I didn't phrase that correctly. I meant Arab wives are expected to be obedient, while western women are thought of as equal partners by western men. It's actually a very common sight here to see Arab men divorce their western wives after a few years of marriage because they are "trouble makers" (i.e. not submissive enough). Sad really.

Oppression by the Turks for centuries which left Arabs uneducated and poor.

I'd love to hear what kind of oppression left Arabs in golden age so uneducated and poor? Edit : deleted rest

Oppression by the Turks for centuries which left Arabs uneducated and poor.

I'd love to hear what kind of oppression left Arabs in golden age so uneducated and poor? Ottoman empire didn't impose cizya to Arabs because they are Muslim, they didn't even conscripted. Sorry to reveal the shocking truth but Arabs were no more than bunch of tribes for centuries until they backstabbed Ottoman Empire for a fistful of gold during World War I only to be rewarded with countries drawn by ruler and ruled by rulers.

After a quick search, you appear to be right. I knew that my country's propaganda machine painted the Arab revolt in a much different light than reality. It gave them legitimacy.

But I never questioned the Ottoman empire's persecution of Arabs, which we were taught about since middle school. Just goes to show how powerful propaganda can be. Makes you wonder what else you know that is completely wrong.

Time to hit the library!

Oppression by the Turks for centuries which left Arabs uneducated and poor.

I'd love to hear what kind of oppression left Arabs in golden age so uneducated and poor?

After a quick search, you appear to be right. I knew that my country's propaganda machine painted the Arab revolt in a much different light than reality. It gave them legitimacy.

But I never questioned the Ottoman empire's persecution of Arabs, which we were taught about since middle school. Just goes to show how powerful propaganda can be. Makes you wonder what else you know that is completely wrong.

Time to hit the library!

Sorry I didn't come back in time to delete rest before you reply and apologies for the harsh reply.

And then who do they see? The west. The big bad west. With their sex, and openness, and women that treat their husbands with love and not just obedience, with young people doing what they want in life, not just get married young, raise kids and die. And so they call you immoral. And they try to shield their religion from your loose way of life as they interpret it as an attack on theirs. Why? Because if Islam wasn't there, if it wasn't the true religion, if it wasn't the answer, then they just wasted their entire life and spent it in misery, all for nothing.

This viewpoint isn't unique to the Middle East, for better or worse. If you look at religious politics within the US, you'll see a similar tension play out between right-wing religious groups prevalent in the South and central states, and the liberals concentrated on the two coasts. You'll also see it in the metropolitan centers of Europe, anywhere significant numbers of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia are present.

It's sort of the litmus test for liberal policies, whether we can convince people of the benefits of liberalism (through education, creation of opportunity, etc) faster than the conservative groups can radicalise them. Thus far, it's not apparent that anyone has achieved widespread success in this regard.