Ummm... do you think the Kurds live in the Middle-East?
Despite being grotesquely under-reported, Kurdish Iraq is doing just fine. It is stable, properous, and democratic. And for the first time in history, they actually control (some of) their historical lands. Needless to say, thay are quite grateful to be rid of Hussein.
But sadly, most people in the West don't seem to give a shit about the Kurds, or the fact that their part of Iraq is actually succeeding.
In any case, your claim about people in the Middle-East is certainly not true of everyone who lives there.
Uhhuh.
Ask people in Turkey how they feel about their wonderful, enlightened, Kurdish neighbors sometime.
You do realize the Kurds are the most violent group in the region, have the strongest ties to al-qaeda and a dream of an autonomous "kurdish homeland" made up of pieces of Turkey and Iraq right?
So yeah, I guess, the Kurds are "free".
The fact that they're actually bloodier than the Sunni or Shiia seems to be something you missed.
Also, it is not clear to me how you can have 'justice' without 'freedom'. I just don't buy that kind of cultural relativism. ("Let's continue our traditional practice of propping up Middle-East despots because that's 'part of their way of life'.")
Because you don't worry about "justice" or "equality" on an individual level, or a national level.
You have once again made the mistake of trying to put yourself in the shoes of a very different, very old culture.
Also, nice job picking out ONE of the four cultural pillars and trying to make it stand alone.
Justice, tradition, religion and equality.
In other words, all four of those factor into their decisions. So cutting off someone's hand for simple shoplifting, which we would consider a horrible act, meets their standards because it appeals to their sense of justice, tradition and religion.
And of course if you apply that sort of punishment unflinchingly to every shoplifter, no matter how hungry, then everyone is equal.
It's interesting to me that my summation of Arab culture has been pooh pooh'd here. Among actual experts of the culture of the region, it isn't in any debate.
The 1st infantry handbook I used as my reference was compiled by cultural experts from the military and CIA, and then was APPROVED by the autonomous Iraqi nationals we worked with prior to the invasion.
In other words, actual Arabs don't have a problem with it.
In an Arabian family, gender and age plays a big role in specifying responsibilities. The father is usually the head of the family and the provider for its needs, while the mother plays a major role in raising children and taking care of the house. This structure is not always the norm; in recent years, both the father and the mother provide for family needs, while household chores are taken care of by maids and servants.
In the past, most major family decisions were made by the father, but recently some of these decisions are made jointly by both the father and the mother. Sons and daughters are taught to follow the inherited traditions and are given responsibilities that correspond with their age and gender. Sons are usually taught to be protectors of their sisters and to help the father with his duties inside and outside the house, while daughters are taught to be the source of love and emotional support in the family, as well as helping their mother to take care of household chores.
Winds of change do not spare any culture; the changes that entered the structure of some Arabian houses is not due to economical needs, but education for both men and women that is mandated by law in the Arabian countries. Education from kindergarten up to university degrees is free to nationals and sometimes residents of these Arabian countries. Although culture, traditions, and Islam strongly stress the importance of women's roles in taking care of the house and raising children, it is a mistake to think that Arabian women are confined to this role.
Before Islam there were many successful Arabian businesswomen and they still exist throughout the Arabian region, but because of cultural reasons, they conduct business in an inconspicuous way. A daughter lives at her family house as long as she is not married; once she is married she moves to her husband's home. Sons might move to their own houses when they get married, but at least one son will still live at the family house even if he is married in order to take care of the parents. When a woman gets married there are no changes made to any part of her name.
Here's an excerpt from a book on doing business in Saudi Arabia.
How many times is culture, tradition and family mentioned in this innocuous passage? It's their culture.
It's a mistake to go into radically different cultures and assume you understand them without doing some research. But hey, we continue to make that mistake in Japan, so why the fuck would I expect any American to be able to wrap their minds around the fact that an Arab might be different than them.
For example, the book I quoted above, one of its purposes is to help businessmen in Arab countries, and I quote from the book jacket here "avoid culture shock".
But hey... if businessmen have problems, an invasion and change of government should work just fine without real cultural awareness right?