I don't deny the existence of Marxism or Socialism in the post-War government of the Middle East, nor their attachments to the Soviet teat. To do so would be as ridiculous as the initial assertion that Patton would have beaten the Russians in 1945.
The importation of Marxism and Socialism into the Middle East has nothing to do with an admiration for the merits of either system. It was, in part, an attempt to copy the West in an effort to match it. This is exactly what Japan did c. 1870-1945 (acquire colonies, produce strong armed forces, set up a semi-democratic government, but without the ability to question and audit the accepted authority.). However, it always fails because while you can easily imitate the FORMS of Western culture, you cannot always imitate the substance.
You'll notice that those systems were imported to the Middle East by men typically educated in the West (including Russia).They are not native ideals of the Islamic Middle East (unlike American democracy and capitalism which sprung from our English heritage).
Western culture does not spring from industry, a form of government or a strong military. It is the result of three millenia of a particular mindset, a peculiar way of thinking which created those things in the first place.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about;
In the toolbox of the 9/11 hijackers, we will find the following things; jumbo airliners, international air travel, electronic funds transfer, ATM Machines, credit cards, cell phones, flight schools, e-mail, laptop computers, passports and other forms of documentation and the means to forge them, as well), and finally, boxcutters.
Each is the end-result of a process of conceptual thinking, trial and error, scientific experimentation and capitalism. Eash was developed in an incubator where people were freely allowed to ask questions such as "Why?" and "why not?", and make the efforts and set the conditions necessary to answer those questions for themselves.
What did the Middle East provide?
Nineteen kamikazes.
Now, the questions have to be asked; are Arabs, and Muslims in general, stupid? No more less intelliegent or brilliant than your typical Westerner. Are Arabs incapable of doing the things that lead to the creation of jumbo jets and passports and ATM machnes? Of course they are, in a strictly intellectual sense.
So, why don't they?
Firstly because their faith tells them, first and foremost, that the Will of Allah is all there is. If man had been intended to fly, Allah would have given him wings. If man had been intended to divine the Will of God by creating the systems of physics, electrical engineering, chemistry, etc that makes an airliner, God would have revealed it to Mohammed. To suggest that man CAN know these things is inimical to Islam; God cannot be questioned and his inner mysteries cannot be discerned by man.
One of the unique features of Western culture is the belief (inherent in Judaism and Christianity) is that one day the Savior will come (or come again), and that it is the duty of all men to strive to make this world as perfect as we can before that event occurs. We believe that we CAN do these things because God wants us to. It is a notion that has been at the base of modern scientific progress ever since the concept was invented. In Islam,there is no tomorrow. There is no future because the greatest thing that can ever happen, already has; Mohammed has ascebded to heaven, there will be no more prophets. al lthat is left to a Muslim is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Koran (which all stress the conversion of the entire planet). Everything,from who and how to marry, to how to run a government, to which hand you wipe your backside with, is contained in the Koran, and it is only through obeyence of the Koran that the Muslim will carry out his ultimate mission; the fulfillment of proephecy.
The Koran rules all and cannot be challeneged.
This attitude (This is the way God made the world, you cannot change it) flies in the face of the evidence to the contrary; the Western World. To challenge the belief that the world is just as God decided to leave it, is to commit blasphemy (as it was in pre-Reformation Europe). However, the Western wolrd advanced PRECISELY because it challenged that notion.
Of course, Muslim societies have acquired the fruits of the Western scientific, economic and political revolutions. Muslims do fly airliners. They do drive autombiles, and watch television. But do they produce them for themselves or do they import them from elsewhere? No, because it's easier to buy them with oil money than it is to create the conditions that would creat Detroit in Riyadh, or a Syrian Boeing.
The next feature of Western culture is the ability to tell authority (secular or religious)to take a hike whenever it ceases to be a force for good within society. in the desert culture of "might makes right" and the Islamic culture of "the Koran is power", this is fairly impossible.
In order to oust the "Leader" you must muster as much force as you can (which is usually not much at all because of poverty and the inability to co-ordinate dissent), unlike the West where such things are typically done through ELECETIONS. In the Middle East and elsewhere) they are usually accomplished by coup-d'tat, by one who manages to collect a monopoly of force and keep it (i.e. Sadat, Saddam Hussein, Khadaffy, the Mullahs, Nasser, the Saudi Royals, etc).
Until there is a way to free the minds of the people of the Middle East from the poison of the Koran, and slavish devotion to it, and to implement a way where political power can change hands without violent, bloody revolution every two years, the Middle East will remain locked in a prison of it's own making. And it is this frustration (the West has these things, the Muslims do not) more than anything else drives the hatred, not the propaganda of the KGB. It was so before Constantinople fell and it is still true today.
Oh, and one more thing;
"You are really quite wrong on this one - the culture that brought us algebra is not the west bashing one we have today ..."
I'm afraid you're quite wrong. The same culture that was fought to a standstill at Poitier, the same culture that subjugated the Balkans, the same culture which overran Constantinople, the same cyulture that brought us the concept of the slave army (Jannissaries and Mamluks), is the same culture that crashed airliners into the World Trade Center.
The only difference is that they look more like us now, in a strictly superficial sense, than they did in 748. mentally they are in the same arrested state of development.
"However, it always fails because while you can easily imitate the FORMS of Western culture, you cannot always imitate the substance. "
Wrong - we rehabilitated Japan very successfully and very completely in very short time.
You really have no understanding of the process of political modernization. The problems we have in the Middleast have nothing to do with a belief in Mohammed - we could have the same problem if they believed in Festivus.
They are anti-west because of Communist indoctrination in the 50's , 60's, and 70's.
One of the reasons I was so P.O.ed at the moronic attitude towards the Port Deal was precisely because it was involving people who are trying to be Moslem and to turn to the Western way of doing things. Kicking that branch of modernity in the ME is exactly the wrong thing to do. It has enough enemies among the Happy Killers.
Most of the so-called advancements due to the Islamic culture came from the advanced elements of civilization which the Arabs were in the process of destroying. The Caliphate was the result of a war against the Christian and Zoroastrian cultures by the plundering hordes from the desert looting and killing in the name of Mohammad.
Like criminal gangs with religion as the totalitarian principle of control Islam says "Submit to Conversion, pay Protection or Die" there are no alternatives. And the West appears ready to submit with only a few exceptions most important of which is the GOP and our President.