Sure, loquitor, sometimes generalizations are expedient, but when you use such vast generalizations to theorize about shunning a "group" that is actually a very wide variety of nations, cultures, lifestyles and RELIGIONS as a possible "solution" to today's problems and conflicts, then it's nothing but appallingly absurd. It's as if we decided to "disown" Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana because "they're all white trash." We would never say something like that about a 1st world region.
1. in our steadily shrinking world it is IMPOSSIBLE to ignore them and still progress ourselves
2. it is in our own best interest to help bring these, as someone else so charmingly put it, "weak and backward" people into the 21st century...your moderate globalists and neo-cons understand this...Colin Powell understands this...James Baker understands this
Luttwak mentions the "irritant of terrorism." Well, I think we all know that terrorism is more than an irritant. And if you want to seduce young men away from the wiles of rasputin-like leaders who will use their minds and bodies as disposable weapons, then you need to give them jobs. You need to give them jobs and (please forgive me) fucking Wal-Marts and FUTURES. Something to lose so that they don't feel like all they have that is precious is an afterlife. It may not be perfect, but fuck it all if having a family and a livelihood and a little money left over every month to go to the movies isn't better than living your life at the barrel of gun. Muslim societies can and have moderated and progressed and it's extremely disingenuous (and, I think, suicidal) to purport that they haven't and can never have something to offer us.
I've been under the impression for a while now that maybe the real challenge today is not for the broken societies to progress, but for the healthy societies to really selflessly sacrifice for their betterment
first. And I suspect if we don't learn how to do that then we're screwed. And personally, I don't hold a lot of faith that we're up to that challenge.
So no, I vehemently disagree that we should roll our eyes, chuckle and walk away from several billion of the earth's inhabitants. It's ludicrous because it is impossible.
Not to mention that now we have already planted our fat ass over there and they've got our license number. They know where to find us.
Sorry to go on and on. I know this is threadjacking and I shouldn't do it, but I really care about these kinds of issues more than any others...and, well, folks are talking about them.
