MA Lagrange:

Very good analogy.

As a relative youngster, Uncle Sam decided that I would enjoy wandering the Countryside in Germany, in and around Hof (the interior German Border). As I walked through the forest between the little castles, I would come across these interesting little buildings in the forest with steep onion domed roofs, and slathered with religious themes of safe-guarding travelers from bandits.

That's how western europe, and especially german areas functioned for centuries. Constant inter-town and mini-state squabbling and wars. Travelers between faced the deadly risk of a night in the forest with the bandits that lived between. The steep roofs prevented them from waiting above to pounce on the travelers when the came out.

It is the history of the world. The fact that some places are still in that mode should not be surprising, and must be understood.

Tom Ricks, for example, is always going on about Iraq's "unravelling." I enjoy his work, but Iraq's history (dating back fro millenia) is of strong city-states and the regions they control, and not of our high school text book version of "democracy." Even during the Salah ad Din and Ottoman days, major cities like Mosul ran themselves---much more complex governance structure than appears to the outsider.

So what if Iraq decided, when all was said and done, to basically return to a city/region structure, loosely bound by national trappings and exigencies? Would that be an unraveling, or just a further refinement on a long-standing historical pattern and practice.

Today's Wash Post explained how the Afghan Reconstruction effort is grinding against the reality of illiteracy, lack of phones, mobility, etc... to extend government.

If all of our "advancement" is predicated on literacy, and only the school kids will have it, we run the risk of creating a little-kid technocratic dictatorship that local customs, practices and leaders will chew up and spit out for breakfast in the same manner as Afghan reactions to communism and secularism in the 1970s.

Where's that headed?

Steve