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New Algeria is a perfect example
Formerly a French colony for 100 years in N. Africa, it was granted independence in 1962. It had a democratically elected government until 1991 when an Islamic fundamentalist party won enough seats to pretty much run the government. The installed government feared the country would turn into a theocracy so it suspended the election and invoked martial law which started a civil war. Fortunately the country seems to be recovering and held elections in 1999.

But the point is that democracies are very hard to start and even hard sustain, especially when religious zealotry is so ingrained into the society in question. Pumping money and other goodies into Afghanistan in some kind of Marshall Plan isn't likely to encourage democracy either because they (the majority of Afghans) don't want it.
Ray
New Point well taken, still
"Peace bombs", done wisely - can hardly be misunderstood in the end (though there will be infinite spin to attribute nefarious motives - that's to be expected). You *can't* possibly tie such aid to.. provided you next start becoming just like us.

We need perhaps to begin to fully understand what Gandhi meant, when he said (to recipients of 'aid' from India), we offer you this assistance, and pray you will forgive us for it..

That was no mere clever phrase - that was wisdom, something our overall policies are often quite short of.



A.
New Problem is Peace Bombs are...
often duds. When you pump money and supplies into a country, there is no guarantee that the money will be truly appreciated. We helped the Afghans drive out the USSR; now it seems like the Afghans in power hate us even more than they hate the Russians. We [the US] and UN have provided millions of dollars in aid to the Taliban lead government only to see it spent on such noble projects like blowing up Buddist shrines, building soccer stadiums (where they don't play soccer but schedule public executions of infidels - q.v. 60 Minutes this past weekend), and hosting bin Laden.

I'm beginning to think the success of the Marshall Plan was a aberration.
Ray
New Aberration.. hmmmm
Well, let's review: the Germans were suffering from the Draconian provisions of the Versailles ending to WWI. The workers were suffering most per usual, yet the level of cultural education (?) of the populace was IIRC among the highest of any country.

Desperation about $/DM, and the finding of a scapegoat for that: International Jewry, was all A. Hitler needed to begin his coalescence, transformation of a society into a heartless machine. Atavistic rituals and banners helped this along - a lot, demonstrating our nearness to the mouth of that primordial cave. Once again.

Japanese? - more feudal than Germany in the '30s, for a gross oversimplification. Huge language barrier: pictograms with diverse meanings; utterly alien to the Romance languages. Ate raw fish even (!) and.. valued silence, simple gardens with One rock + a pebble. Unfathomable to hip Western desire for noise + lots of stuff around, all the time.

Italy - 3rd part of The Axis Powers. Well, they Did have opera, Ettore Bugatti, DaVinci *and* the Pope - and a culture as old as anyone's. Latin-based language - grokkable even by Murican monolingues.

(US? We were morosely amidst the depression, with the CPAs in charge - insisting on balancing the books, no matter who died under the weight of their religio-economic parables. Never heard of 'innovation' - after all that instant-greed sunk everyone on Black Tuesday in '29)

Post-war: it appears that after the toxins were purged, the endorphins returned to normal brain chemistry - there was no problem "understanding each other", despite different languages. Even in Japan, the ideas of women having a life too + the nice ring to the idea of 'self-government' -- seem to have taken, via the inculcation by Our Military-God Doug MacArthur, who surely atoned for his massive vanity, in a bravura performance such that the Japanese still Love him.. mostly. (Right after Demmings, who showed them how to out-do the Murican PHB in intelligence - Still!!)

Now as to the 4th World today - those as poor as the 3rd economically AND characterized by antediluvian ideas of God'sWill which posits the Male as local god / the female as a piece of shit, with merely occasional recreational value... and the Judeo-Christian form of Martial Arts as Really a Bad Idea [thanks, Peter]

WOULD 'generosity' from The Great Satan\ufffd be seen as mere pandering to the weak-willed, agitprop towards the surrendering of that Certainty that Allah is On [Only] Our Side?




Dunno but.. seen one Fundamentalist: you've seen them all.
Ayatollahs - they're everywhere.
New Marshall Plan an aberration? No, rather, a data point.
Our aid to Europe also meant with resentment. That's why they talk of the "ugly American" over there, and are always going on about our arrogance and bad taste. And it's why there are so many pomos in France. Remember, the modern existentialist movement started with Sartre, who was arguably a Nazi collaborator of sorts, and never could come to terms with his guilt.

But it doesn't get out of hand there, as it does in the Muslim world. What's different? Let's enumerate variables:

1. Cultural tradition. The Muslim world is a thick surface layering of Islam rooted in a core of ancient familistic dysfunctions. Europe was a skin of Nazism that had oozed out of a dead and gangrenous Judeo-Christian/Liberal tradition.(1) We wiped the skin off, and partially embalmed the underlying tradition. But it still oozes postmodernism.

2. Capacity for guilt. The Muslim world is repeatedly humiliated, but never takes the lesson to heart. They simply project their failings onto the West, and cast themselves as the noble longsuffering victims. They have no capacity for guilt, or shame, or even chagrin. You can't teach people like that. Even the nuns can't get through to them... oh wait, different group. By contrast, Germany at the end of WWII was utterly aghast and ashamed of itself. The festering corpse of Christianity had just enough power left to make them feel guilt, given a sufficiently enormous sin and the sight of piles of dead Jews. And guilt was what they were most in need of at that juncture. Also, France at least was able to feel embarrassment at how quickly they'd caved in to the enemy. Italy disowned Mussolini, and with him, most of what he had stood for. That's not quite the same thing as guilt, but it's repentance of a sort, and good enough to do the job. (In the case of England, guilt is moot. The English had nothing to be ashamed of, having long since put aside the appeasers.)

3. Totality of defeat. We crushed Nazi Germany into the dust. We didn't have to crush France into the dust, because the Nazis had done it for us. England didn't need crushing, apart from the appeasers, who had been more or less crushed at the start of the war. We levelled Japan's cities, and truamatized their surviving population. It was drastic, barbaric even, and arguably a war crime, but it got through to them when nothing else had.(2) But the Muslim world desperately needs crushing, and has never had it. We've stomped on them plenty of times when they got to be a nuisance, starting with the Barbary pirates and continuing through to the present day. But we've never followed through and finished the job. A policy of containment, even an aggressive one, is a poor substitute for victory.

1) According to Kierkegaard, Christianity was already dead in Europe in the 1840's.
2) Brutality is a language of sorts, sorely lacking in richness of expression, but quite unambiguous and compelling in what little it can convey. And it's the only language some people understand.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
New Minor correction.
In the case of England, guilt is moot. The English had nothing to be ashamed of, having long since put aside the appeasers.


You need to read up on what happened in Dresden near the end of WW II. Estimates of up 250,000 people (way more than the combined Japanese atomic bomb victims) were killed and the British had a hand in it.
Alex

Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. -- Euripides
New Heh.. Marlowe, yer on a roll :-\ufffd
Love the 'brutality option' as in,
(Motorcycle crazies startin' out one afternoon..)

Well chaps, what'll it be today?

\ufffd mindless destruction?
\ufffd senseless brutality?
\ufffd deliver some flowers to the old folks home?
\ufffd all of the above?

Kirkeg\ufffdrd was probably pretty close in lots of ways, not just that one IMhO. But damn few prolly stumbled upon the Pseudonymous Works of K. except in dry academe. I wonder what he'd have thought, with a crystal ball to see Murica 2001 [??]

Christian 'world' has always been mercantile-based = why they like Onward Christian Sojers and similar bellicose mantras. That's why they 'won' over the Muslim variety of fantasies about 'us all'. We're likely not as well organized as was Attila or Genghis - but we have the will to make up for that via any means techno- possible.

I have no idea what anyone 'ought' to do next, but expect that your encapsulation is close enough for govt. work: it'll come down to kick-ass and as always Gawd Will be on Our Side\ufffd, assisted a bit with nukes and transistors. Still.. one always has to ask,

Is the World.. ready for self-government. Yet?
(And.. can civilization survive the ravages of religion or, will its mania alone, precipitate the End?)

Cheers,

A.
     US repeating cold war mistakes - (bluke) - (42)
         This is exactly what I was warning against. - (inthane-chan) - (32)
             Find us some non-monsters with teeth, and we'll talk. - (marlowe) - (31)
                 We have teeth. - (inthane-chan) - (30)
                     So what you're saying is... - (marlowe) - (29)
                         I didn't say occupy. - (inthane-chan) - (28)
                             You do realize you're not making sense, don't you? - (marlowe) - (27)
                                 I wouldn't call it imperialism. - (inthane-chan) - (26)
                                     Trouble is... - (Simon_Jester) - (22)
                                         Well, that's something else that needs to change. - (inthane-chan) - (14)
                                             Our puritanical attitude toward heroin? - (marlowe) - (13)
                                                 I know drugs screw people up. - (inthane-chan) - (12)
                                                     So you'd fight the monster... - (marlowe) - (11)
                                                         Yes I have. - (inthane-chan) - (10)
                                                             Re: Yes I have. - (Fearless Freep) - (4)
                                                                 Do you like crack babies? - (inthane-chan) - (3)
                                                                     Problem is... - (Fearless Freep)
                                                                     I'm all for sterilizing hard drug addicts. - (marlowe) - (1)
                                                                         Half the world... - (Fearless Freep)
                                                             Quite a mixture there... - (Another Scott) - (3)
                                                                 Casual heroin users? - (marlowe) - (2)
                                                                     I was apparently misinformed. - (Another Scott)
                                                                     Re: Casual heroin users? Not so. - (Ashton)
                                                             You'd rather write off people than try to prevent... - (marlowe)
                                         Algeria is a perfect example - (rsf) - (6)
                                             Point well taken, still - (Ashton) - (5)
                                                 Problem is Peace Bombs are... - (rsf) - (4)
                                                     Aberration.. hmmmm - (Ashton)
                                                     Marshall Plan an aberration? No, rather, a data point. - (marlowe) - (2)
                                                         Minor correction. - (a6l6e6x)
                                                         Heh.. Marlowe, yer on a roll :-\ufffd - (Ashton)
                                     You wouldn't call it imperialism. But others will. Loudly. - (marlowe) - (2)
                                         Not bad... - (inthane-chan) - (1)
                                             Leading by example? - (marlowe)
         What do you suggest? - (Another Scott) - (8)
             People and regimes don't change overnight - (bluke)
             Re: What do you suggest? - (neelk)
             Pakistan as an example - (bluke) - (5)
                 That doesn't answer the question. What should the US do? -NT - (Another Scott) - (4)
                     Carpet bomb all the Afghan settlements - (tuberculosis) - (3)
                         But the Afghan people aren't the problem. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                             No, they are part of the solution - (tuberculosis) - (1)
                                 I have my doubts about that. Even so, give `em a try (nomsg -NT - (marlowe)

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