Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
Or, perhaps, those most fearful of the change brought about by cultural globalism.

Or, perhaps, those who see the world moving past them with no hope of being able to join the parade, and looking for someone to blame. (For example, young men from Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. who have an engineering degree without the family connections to find appropriate work.)

Or, perhaps, a parent whose children died in an cholera epidemic brought about by lack of clean water, in a country governed by a kleptocracy. (Pick your third world country.)

Or, perhaps, a normal, everyday sociopath/psychopath who just enjoys killing.

Some of these we could address, at least in part. But in 2003 we took strong action to remove a kleptocrat from power, and I don't need to comment on how that turned out. []As to whether we will address them ... I don't see any serious move to remedy problems in Darfur []

Just as a focal point, what do we expect to happen in Zimbabwe over the next few years? What kind of terrorist activities can we expect from the Mugabe government against its people? What kind of response can we expect from those people in return? How long before wide spread famine begins? What bill are we going to be told to pick up, without, of course any interference in the "internal politics" of Zimbabwe's ruling kleptocrats/lunatics, who created the crisis to begin with? And how will the victims spread the pain? Will they use terrorism to involve other African countries? European countries?

I could not agree more

However, before that can occur, the West in general, and the US in particular, need to do some serious soul searching. A few of the topics might include: the difference between moral position (committing troops and dollars to ending a situation such as Darfur) and moral posturing (viewing Darfur with alarm and forming a discussion group to talk about how awful it is); the difference between journalism and propaganda (referring to the "Global War on Terror" as opposed to renaming it "The So-Called Global War on Terror"); do we really have any moral obligation to band aid the problem (e.g. food aid to Zimbabwe) if we don't have a right or obligation to fix the problem (e.g. food aid to Zimbabwe delivered by the 82nd Airborne and a couple of MAUs)?

I know it will be controversial, but one the Bush had dead on right: we are going to have terrorism with us until we remove the root causes that lead people to adopt it.
As to how many such threats may be dealt with, and indeed how many of them become direct threats to us, is in some measure both limited, and in some measure due to our own failures to recognize and observe our own limitations. That the overeducated and underemployed 20- and 30- something sons of the Saudi middle classes can't get good work (and subsequently cannot marry), and have been conditioned by their families to refuse menial work (which is considered degrading and to be done by hired foreigners) because of social favouratism/nepotism in particular and the sheer weight of resources that go to support the Saudi ruling classes in general, is something that we cannot change, nor can we change the fact that the aforesaid marginalized young men of the Saudi middle classes subsequently form the single largest recruiting pool for Al-Qaida. We can and must make political efforts to encourage and assist the Saudi Goverment to undertake the necessary social reforms to change or at least mitigate the situation, but we cannot do that by ourselves, nor make the Saudis do that, let alone overcome the powerful resistance of the ruling classes to such reforms.

Furthermore, to the extent that we appear to support (in particular by the past or present stationing and operations of our troops in "Muslim" areas, and especially Saudi because it contains Mecca), even tacitly, the ruling classes in Saudi Arabia, seems to provide a pretext to hate us. Additionally, the presence of "Western"-style popular culture that offends many local sensibilities (said popular culture also offends many Western sensibilities too) aggravates the situation. Conveniently for the Saudi ruling classes, of course, we then become the target of anger and hatred of those whom the ruling classes have marginalized. And we can do no more to disengage ourselves from those ruling classes, practically speaking, than what the global need (including our own ) for ME petroleum resources in turn necessitate our having good working relations (relatively speaking) with the Saudi ruling classes. Couple that with our relations with Israel, and we provide a convenient whipping-boy for the frustrations of the marginalized classes there. Until we can lessen or eliminate our dependence upon ME petroleum and have our relations with Israel somehow become a non-issue in the ME (the prospects for which are extremely remote), we are stuck with the hand we've got.

Extending this to other situations, such as Zimbabwe and perhaps even Sudan, one of the common threads that emerges is that one of the fundamental problems is the relationship of the ruling classes to the rest of their society; typically, the ruling classes are inclined to kleptocracy and even to ethnocentrism/tribalism. Saudi Arabia is more or less a case of kleptocracy, and at the very least social favouratism; I hesistate to say tribalism as well because I am not sufficiently familiar with the tribal memberships of the middle classes and their relations with those of the upper classes. Zimbabwe is clearly a case of both kleptocracy and tribalism, although the terrorism generated is directed against against its own citizenry, especially those outside of the ruling tribe (the latter of course forming the power base of the ruling party and providing its armed muscle). Sudan is not as clear to me, although certainly the element of "African" versus "Arab" is in play alongside tribalism (I believe at least) amongst the various rebel groups through the country (Darfur included); an element of kleptocracy is also seemingly present, particularly given the fighting between the various sides over specific areas that contain mineral and especially petroleum deposits. And Sudan has hosted Al-Qaida in the past; present indications of said are (publicly) muted.

In all three cases, the ruling classes either create the conditions for terrorism, such as in Saudi Arabia, create and wield the terrorism themselves, as in Zimbabwe, or there is a mix of both, as in Sudan. To the extent that we may be able to spur the ruling classes of such countries to remove or substantially mitigate the conditions that they have created or to cease using or sponsoring terrorism themselves, then this is largely the extent to which we can do something about the creation of bases for terrorism and the like. Unless said countries actually attack us with grave and certain damage inflicted or to be inflicted by them, the military option is very limited, or even non-existent. It may even be wasteful and perhaps counter-productive anyway.

We will not be free of the scourge of their terrorism until the ruling powers of the countries from which it originates change their own ways. We cannot do that for them. We can only try to hold the line, and try to lend assistance (if they will accept it) while they (if they) try to reform themselves. In any case, we must see and accept our own limits in what we can and cannot do about the sources of terrorism and within those limits do what we actually can and should to mitigate the problem. Finally, we must recgonize above all that it is not just our problem, but mainly their (the ruling classes of the countries that are the sources of terrorism) problem; they have to fix it, and they may, or they may not. Either way, we have to live and deal with it as best we can.