If we feed them the message they will hear will be a positive pro-american pro-western message, if Bin Laden feeds them the message they will hear is Death To America, Death To Israel.
OBL offers his ignorant people blame, not food. Are you suggesting that OBL feeds every Arab that follows him? Every Arab that needs food is taken care of by bin Laden? He's wealthy, but he's no Bill Gates. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of his followers haven't seen a bread crumb from him. OBL offers his followers the same thing that the theocracies offer their people over there. A scapegoat. They don't want their people to see reality (Why are the leaders so damn rich and we're so damn poor?), they want to put all blame onto the shoulders of the U.S.A. When you run a stone-aged society, the easiest country to blame is the one that is out in the open on its own prosperity, freedom, and luxury. Us. The U.S.
Why should we feed them? Why should we be blackmailed? This is a very liberal view you are presenting, feeding the world so that they don't blow us up. This is the way to socialism, providing people with the means to survive without any sort of exchange, simply because they need it and demand it and will kill people if they don't get it.
I know what you are trying to say, and to some extent I agree with you. There is a reason OBL is popular, but it doesn't mean he's doing something right. It doesn't mean we should follow suit. He's evil, incarnate, and simply because the ignorant follow him doesn't mean he's got the right idea.
It isn't really blackmail, because if Bin Laden wasn't doing it we could get away without caring.
It's because someone else is able to turn them against us that we have to care.