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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (137952)	6/25/2004 3:49:54 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi cnyndwllr; Re: "You talk of the terrorists as though they're Wall Street thinkers who weigh the likely consequences of their actions in a logical manner and who refuse to act when the odds are horribly stacked against them. When you do so you project "our" mind set, "our" thinking and "our" values on them. That's a mistake of overwhelming magnitude." It does remind one of the logic of the brilliant guys who brought us Vietnam. -- Carl

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (137952)	6/26/2004 4:04:51 AM
From: wonk	Respond to of 281500

…As our history reveals, the way to effectively stop armed resistance fueled by tribal loyalties or big ideas is to kill not only the resistors, but also to brutally and systematically kill their friends, their family, and their tribe… Not just our (American) history, but the history of Civilization for the past 6,000 years. I can only see four common themes as to why cultures radically change: 1. An outside power through armed aggression kills a vast majority of the capable arms-bearing male population age 18-35; 2. An totalitarian regime conducts genocide against its own people killing a vast majority of the capable arms-bearing male population age 18-35; 3. An outside power while perhaps sparing the population, destroys the infrastructure and cultural institutions of the society, pushing it back decades on the developmental scale; 4. The society changes on its own, due to its internal recognition of the inherent inefficiencies and inconsistencies in its political and sociological institutions. This change can be peaceable but is often not, i.e., revolution or civil war. Japan and Germany changed because the Allies executed item 1; China was dragged out of the medieval era by first 4, then later 2; (civil war then the Cultural Revolution); Russia was dragged out of its fence-straddling position between quasi-feudalistic – monarchist and one-foot-into-the-industrial-age society by 4 then 2 (civil war then Stalin’s purges and Gulag); Feudalism ended, and conditions were enabled for the Enlightenment, by the civil wars and society upheaval caused by the Reformation (4). It should be noted that the major historical precursor to the Reformation was the Black Plague that is estimated to have killed 1/3 of Europe’s population. How far back shall we go? (Genghis Kahn, Dynastic China, Vandals, Huns, Visigoths, the Romans…) Mass Death is an Amazing Thing. It does change attitudes. We cannot defeat armed resistance in Iraq because we are not prepared to do either 1 or 3. (Saddam could have performed item 2, but he wasn’t ruthless enough, and he wasn’t interesting in change that drives the Society forward. He was only a thug – with a little t as compared to a Stalin who was both a killer for the ages but brought Russia into the modern age (with fire, death and war). Since we are not prepared to do 1 or 3, and 2 is unavailable to us, positive change, e.g., democratization, can only be accomplished through 4. And while there is that one small caveat that change can sometimes be peaceful, it is more often the exception. The biggest problem is that the region is defined by Islam, and Islam is at war with itself. Islam has not yet had its Protestant Reformation. Carthago Delenda Est ww