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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Are you maintaining that the predominantly Islamic states from the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, the Phillipines, and Indonesia are benevolent and non-violent?
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No, but they are no more violent than their non-Islamic neighbors (in SE Asia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma are significantly more violent nations).
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A successful democracy requires a vibrant middle-class, a feature lacking in most of the Islamic states.
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I guess that depends on how you rate a successful democracy. The nation where I currently live has been a democracy for quite a while (sometimes more successfully than others). It has only developed a vibrant middle-class very recently. Both Japan and Korea were relatively successful democracies before they had any substantial middle-class.
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IMHO, the money would be better spent helping moderate clerics and eliminating those teaching hate by any means possible, preferrably by discrediting and disenfranchising them and their followers.
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And when the terrorist leaders turn to another method of recruiting for their "cause" (which is power for themselves, no matter how they dress it up)?
It isn't that long ago that a number of Arab terrorist groups espoused Marxism. As someone has already pointed out, religion is easier to exploit and manipulate, but that doesn't mean that the culture can't be exploited by other means.