JayB

I think my last trip out there was in 2004 or thereabouts, but by that time I think that pretty much all of the bolts on the routes that start at Tombstone Ledge had been replaced, American Pie had been replaced, and there were 3/8" bolts of more recent vintage either adjacent to old Leeper hardware, or placed in holes once occupied by old Leeper hardware, in place near the harder climbing on Online/Offline - and I think there's been some work done since then. The rock quality is incredible, the crowds are well nigh non-existent, the setting is incredible, and the few routes that I've done out there were enjoyable and memorable. Anyone who lives within a couple hours of Static should be thankful for what they've got - Leeper hardware and all. I look forward to checking out more of that crag when the exile is over...

...and right. You are also welcome to read the paper and dispute the arguments, data, and conclusions.

Now we're getting silly. You could rephrase it - but that's not what the article said. I did read several of the articles linked to the Wickapedia site - as I stated. If you going to base your argument on "scholarly" works, and not just your opinion, then don't get caught trying to bend the words to match your opinion and then accuse others providing some solid examples that contradict your opinion as non-scholarly. Cheers. Wasn't claiming that the articles in question weren't "scholarly," but that they didn't specifically address the question under discussion. I've provided a paper which does specifically address these claims, which I invite you to read, if you wish to base your objection to my argument on the contention that it has no support in the literature. Just because you didn't read a paper that contains the argument or the data to support my claim, doesn't mean that such papers don't exist. If you're going to play that game, at least play it fairly. Again: http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/ross/doesoil.pdf

And another: http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/ross/doesoil.pdf If you are going to respond to data and arguments presented in the paper, you'll need to...actually read the paper.

I went back and looked at the Wickipedia reference you posted and the linked article. I didn't see anything related to "single resource" vs "multiple resource" economies, only a distinction between contries "rich in natural resources" and those that "lack natural resources". And while there was one paper that addressed the increased likelyhood that a country "rich in natural resources" would have more issues with corruption - I saw no mention of a correlation with "repressive regimes". Seems to me you're stretching this analogy. In addition - the US is quite resource rich and a democratic country (sort of). I don't think you thesis is holding much water here - and not backed up by what you have cited. One of the countries cited in the summary (your link) is South Korea. The summary goes on to say lacking natural resources South Korea has concentrated on investments in education and that has lead to a more diverse economy. My oh, my though - a step across the border and we have a similar country, similar lack of natural resources, and quite a repressive regime. I could easily rephrase the said statement to something like "There is a strong tendency towards an inverse relationship between resource wealth and democratic rule in countries which lack strong democratic institutions and traditions." and it would indeed be more accurate. I don't think that such modifications would undermine the claim that on the whole, the presence of vast oil reserves and the revenues that they generate have been a factor that has tended to undermine, rather than advance democratic reform in the middle east. This is one of many variables that has done so, but it's important, often overlooked, and is not easily addressed by changes in public policy. You are welcome to argue the contrary case if you wish. If you broaden the scope of your reading beyond the wikipedia entry, I think you'll find that my claims that there is a connection between resource wealth and authoritarianism are supported elsewhere in the literature. http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/research_reports/art2635.html/OA-Extractive_Sectors_and_the_Poor.pdf

Flip 1: China. I hear their free elections are real potboilers. I suppose that they're single commodity producers...if you define "all the cheap shit we buy" as a single commodity. Flip 2: Norway, the world's tax haven. Flip 3: 'third world'? A bit of bait and switch, no? Is Saudi Arabia 'third world', or are you talking about someplace like Nigeria? I'd say 'third world' has much more to do with repression than 'single resource'. Non-specific/multiple criteria: Naughty statistician! Flip 4: I've racked up 4 national examples that refute your argument to your none. So far, I'm winning by infinity percent. Flip 5: Costa Rica. A classic commodity (coffee and palm oil) producing central American country which is not repressive. Why? Because they choose not to be. You don't actually seem to understand how these things work. If I claim that the scholarship and the data support the conclusion that smokers have a greater tendency to contract lung cancer, and you cite the names of five people who smoke who have not contracted lung cancer, you have not refuted the data or the scholarship. The fact that you believe otherwise is telling.

Does the fact that the people committing the acts of terrorism make explicit and repeated reference to the motivations and sanction for their actions in their religion - which is Islam - mean that acknowledging these facts in public statements is indicative of an intention to undertake a wholesale condemnation of the said religion, especially when coupled with repeated mosque visits, multiple and repeated statements in which the president, the secretary of state, etc take pains to make positive comments about Islam and differentiate the extremists form the rest of the faithful? Would inciting "fear and hatred" of Islam as a policy goal really jive with the broader policy objectives that the administration has been trying to achieve, and that has maintained relationships with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, etc, etc, etc? I think that unreasoning fear and hatred in question here is more appropriately consigned to the folks making these assertions rather than the administration, with the target in question being the president and his administration. I thought that the black helicopter survivalists who were railed against Clinton would never have their paranoid vitriol exceeded by any other portion of the electorate in my lifetime, but clearly I was mistaken.

"If you look around the world, it's clear that in states around the world - not just the Middle East - in which the economy is driven by a single resource, authoritarianism is the rule rather than the exception. In states in which a wide range of industries and business - which cannot easily be seized or capably administered by a single entity - generate the tax revenues that the state depends upon for its existence, some degree of public involvement in and acceptance of the political system is a necessary condition for the state's survival, and taxation guarantees some degree of representation. In states where the control of a single resource generates all of the revenues that the state needs to function, there's no need for taxation and no impetus for representation. Moreover - in this scenario, the state, rather than independent economic activity - determines who eats and who starves, who prospers and who suffers, and this is not a state of affairs that provides the autonomy or material security necessary for sustained dissent." My example is the set of all third world countries that rely on the sale of a single commodity or set of commodities to drive their economies, and I'll cite the historical records and scholarly consensus. This is like debating a guy who flips a coin five times, gets heads five times in a row, and proclaims the law of averages null and void. Do you honestly believe that if I don't take the time to compile all of the data scholarship that supports this theory in this particular thread, that all of this evidence and scholarship have been nullified? Interesting.

The entry is just a means of acquainting you with a brief overview of the scholarship, which you are clearly both unfamilar with and unwilling to address. If I had linked the wikipedia entry for "Evolution," could I expect a trite dismissal of the scholarship which that particular theory is based upon on the same grounds? And..my argument is contained in previous posts, and unless your refutation is contained within a treatise in which the various economists and other experts who work in the field accept as such, then you can congratulate yourself on accepting your own argument, but nothing else.

This assertion evaporates under historical scrutiny. First of all, there are very few nations around the world that are 'single resource' based. Too few to draw any kind of simplistic conclusion regarding the relationship of that key resource and the oppressiveness of their regime. When one examines these few nations, no clear patterns emerge. Repressive Saudi Arabia is oil based, but then, so is the very democratic and socially liberal Norway. New Zealand's primary export is sheep. Repressive? Not very. For a more local example, visit Kuwait, another oil based nation, sometime. Pretty liberal and modern. One thing Jay's arguments all have in common: they are in love with the 'Big Idea': a one size fits all, formula based, and thus centralized, solution for the world's problems. Unfortunately for this philosophy, which has failed spectacularly of late, successful foreign policy requires a more case by case approach and a great deal of local knowledge and dependence on in country relationships. Using Saudi Arabia as an example, I would argue that their cultural and colonial history had much more to do with their present level of repression than the fact that they are a single resource producer. Islam, which was at its inception was a liberalizing force in what was a brutal nomadic culture, has morphed over the centuries into its present intolerant forms, the most intolerant of which reside in Saudi Arabia. No surprise; it is the birthplace of the religion. What we see today is a young, tenuous Kingdom, established under the auspices the colonial powers long before oil became a primary world resource, trying to maintain an uneasy peace with a fundamentalist population following a religion established, again, long before oil became a primary world resource. There's actually a substantial body of research and empirical evidence to support my arguments and claims about the connection between economies driven by single-commodity or set of commodities and authoritarianism. When you have a strong set of democratic or cultural traditions at work, this tendency will be less pronounced. When a society that lacks these elements, or in which these factors are weaker, the tendency towards authoritarianism will be more pronounced. In the case of the Middle East, I suppose one could claim that there are and have always been strong institutional and cultural tendencies that have manifested themself in a longstanding history of democratric rule throughout the region - whether the time period under discussion involves the Umayyads, the Abbassids, or the present - but that would be a rather difficult claim to reconcile with the historical record. When can we expect the publication of your refutation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Thus US policy on what? Narrow it down a bit and I'll answer. The reality is that any serious attempt on your part to address any of the questions would be impossible to reconcile with your viewpoints, and your posts are a tacit admission of as much. And - to address a minor sub-point of your hystrionics: "We should NOT be making speeches about how Islam is the root of all evil." Can you find me a single example of a case in which a single official associated with the executive branch hasn't taken pains to distinguish jihadists from the average Muslim. If you look at Bush's actions - like visiting multiple Mosques on multiple occaisions - or the content of his speeches, you will not find blanket condemnations of Islam, but repeated assertions that our conflict is restricted to those who invoke Islam to justify the intentional murder of civilians. From the tone of your comments, it seems as though you consider statements such as these have played a significant role in alienating moderate Muslims. If you are correct in this assertion, then it's difficult to determine what statements concerning Islamists could be uttered by any public official without inflaming Muslim sentiment, in which case one has to ask whether it's US rhetoric that's caused a significant portion of the Muslim world to extend their sympathies to radical Islamists, or if there are other forces that might warrant consideration.

How is this statement: "I would also argue that many, myself included, believe our Middle Eastern polices have been flawed not because of some simplistic belief that our involvement per se leads to repression, but that the US does not consider the repressiveness of a regime as a primary determinant for lending support. Rather, alignment with US interests (Israel) and a willingness to sell oil on favorable terms (Saudi Arabia) have determined who we favor in the Middle East. Social justice has had little to do with it. As a result, we are now reaping a huge debt, decreased security, and a less stable and less democratic Middle East for our decades of massive investment in the region." Materially Different than this one, that no one holds, and gives credence to, and is not widely referred to as "Blowback": "I think the argument I've seen is that political repression in Arab countries has been dramatically higher as a consequence of US support - explicit or tacit - for the regimes doing the repressing, and that attacks by persons inhabiting these countries on the US and other Western powers are an outgrowth of and reaction to that repression." The central argument in both variants is that our involvement there - whatever the motives - has resulted in a net increase in repression over and above that which would have resulted from any endogenous forces in the region, and the net result has been a set of political conditions which has given rise to the terrorist attacks against the US. If alignment with our interests, especially during the Cold War, and a willingness to sell oil on favorable terms (how the term "favorable" jives with the creation of a cartel created for the express purpose of restricting supply and thereby artificially elevating prices, or pondering for a moment what the Saudis would do with their oil if they weren't selling it on the open market, in which case it invariably winds up in the hands of whomever is willing and able to pay the most for it would make an interesting discussion in its own right), or containing Islamists that would institute a set of laws that would result in more repression than the existing regimes have exerted and have a decidedly more hostile stance towards the US....are not legitimate policy interests for the US to consider when considering how to play it's cards in the Middle East - what are? If you have a complex set of conflicting perogatives at play in an extremely consequential region - are you confident that calculating our moves on the basis of a single variable at all times will necessarily result in a set of outcomes that's to our liking and which advances our interests, and improves the lives of the people living in the region? I'm not sure that a single-variable policy in which we lend our support to whatever political outcomes are consistent with whatever manifestations of the popular will that happen to prevail at any given moment would have resulted in a Middle East that's any more peaceful or free than the one that we've arrived at via our consideration of the multitude of other variables that have driven our policy in the region for decades. I also think that this kind of analysis gives far too much significance to the role that external forces have played in the region, and pays far too little attention to the endogenous forces at work there. Pretend what you want, there are precious few circumstances in which the cultural and economic forces at work in the region would yield a political situation in which the Middle East had transmuted into an equatorial Holland. Sorry.

I don't think I could be called ungenerous in characterizing the entirety of your thinking on these matters thus far as "I don't know what the right policies are, but the policies that we've adopted thus far are wrong." Here's some straightforward questions for you, that should be relatively easy to answer given your oft-stated positions on these matters. How about some straightforward answers? What is the ethically and diplomatically sound way to deal with unsavory, undemocratic regimes when the forces likely to displace them are likely to be both more repressive and more hostile to both the West and many of the rights and freedoms that (small d) democrats around the world consider - or at least claim to consider - fundamental rights that no one should be deprived of? Does the case of say - Iran - support the claim that active or tacit US support is either necessary and sufficient for the establishment of a repressive regime? Have any of you considered non-political forces that promote the development and maintenance of repressive political models? If you look around the world, it's clear that in states around the world - not just the Middle East - in which the economy is driven by a single resource, authoritarianism is the rule rather than the exception. In states in which a wide range of industries and business - which cannot easily be seized or capably administered by a single entity - generate the tax revenues that the state depends upon for its existence, some degree of public involvement in and acceptance of the political system is a necessary condition for the state's survival, and taxation guarantees some degree of representation. In states where the control of a single resource generates all of the revenues that the state needs to function, there's no need for taxation and no impetus for representation. Moreover - in this scenario, the state, rather than independent economic activity - determines who eats and who starves, who prospers and who suffers, and this is a state of affairs that provides the autonomy or material security necessary for sustained dissent. My contention here is that no matter what the US or other western powers did in the region, there'd be very strong tendencies towards autocracy there, and that these tendencies will continue to present an obstacle towards democratic reform in the region for as long as oil provides sufficient revenues for the regimes that are currently in charge there. ... I think the argument I've seen is that political repression in Arab countries has been dramatically higher as a consequence of US support - explicit or tacit - for the regimes doing the repressing, and that attacks by persons inhabiting these countries on the US and other Western powers are an outgrowth of and reaction to that repression. I am curious what the consensus is amongst people who hold this view concerning what would transpire if the US were to immediately disavow anything that could be construed as support for, and abandon all regimes in the Middle East which are undemocratic and/or repressive. Would the repression end? Stay the same? Get worse? And what implications would this have with respect to the frequency and intensity of attacks carried out against the US by citizens of these states? Does the fact that a significant number of the terrorist attacks carried out against the US and other Western powers were conducted by persons who had either lived in Europe for a number of years, or were born there, and who thus never experienced or had escaped from the type of repression in question have any bearing on your thinking about the role of US-fostered political repression in bringing about attacks of this nature?

"Why Rich Kids Don’t Stay Rich Rich kids, we hear, have it all. Money. Connections. Top educations. Cars and clothes. For those who are part of what Warren Buffett calls “the Lucky Sperm Club,” life is supposedly one long shopping trip with an no-limits ATM card. A really big play houseBut what if it’s not? What if growing up rich actually has disadvantages? And what if rich kids’ penchant for spending — and their lack of experience at earning — catches up with them, and that unlimited ATM machine winds up empty? (Not to feel sorry for these people, just to point out a reality.) That’s the premise behind my article in the Los Angeles Times today, which profiles a wealth-education camp designed to teach today’s rich kids how to manage their money. My conclusion is that despite all their supposed advantages, today’s rich kids have grown up in such bubbles of privilege that they’re not prepared for today’s increasingly competitive job market. They don’t make good investors, they don’t compete well for the top jobs, and they’re not hungry for success like kids who grow up in middle-class homes can be. Eventually, I argue, their money will run out. And much of the inherited wealth in America will flow back to people who actually earn it — as it has throughout history. This is what makes wealth in America dynamic, rather than dynastic. Some readers disagreed. One sent me a thoughtful email arguing that “the ultrawealthy are not stupid. They know their children. Some just fork over hundreds of millions to willing yet untrained hands, but I think most set up foundations or other mechanisms that will keep their name and children in the pink for generations to come. The very smartest and most family-oriented probably even invest in training their children to take the reins.” In other words, rich parents don’t give their money to irresponsible kids. I’m sure this is true for some families. But in my experience, rich parents can’t help themselves when it comes to spoiling their kids, no matter how irresponsible those kids are with money. And those kids usually wind up squandering their money through bad investments, bad relationships or lavish shopping sprees. Since there are no reliable data on this, we have to go by experience. What do you think? Will today’s rich kids stay rich, or wind up leaving the bulk of their fortunes to the rest of us?" Apparently this article showed up on the radar of those under discussion and they've started to respond in real-time. Makes for some interesting reading: Responses to the Post in the "WSJ Wealth Report" "Most people without substantial wealth have not much more than a half baked opinion on what those with money, especially heirs, can go through. While the masses are all obsessed with those who seemlingly have it and yourselves lusting after it and generally deriding those who have it. Yet you still buy your lotto tickets hoping to win a million. This life is like a cruise liner, some get on and some get off and down the track it continues to happen. Just cause my folks (or maybe myself) booked me a ticket into a swankier cabin than those bunking on a lower deck certainly doesn’t mean too much if I go through the cruise without affinity or compassion for my fellow travellers regardless of which deck I’m camped on. Being a good steward of what you’ve got is key and if you have more you have a different set of challenges than those who perhaps don’t. And certainly after reading the ill-informed comments of many above and joe public in general to the wealthier in society it’s no wonder most can’t appreciate the secret challenges and pressures that come with created or inherited wealth. http://inheritance-project.com/ may give those interested to educate themselves some further insight. And to the rest of you I’m certainly not going to try." :cry: :cry: "i’ve had a bit of a lavish upbringing, complete with trips to Europe before I learned about the place in school, and vacations on jets and yachts but around high school I noticed my parents, neither a college graduate, were clueless about saving. I decided then that I didn’t want to be relying on them and decided to go college for finance. While I still live a spoiled lifestyle and party more than I should, I am doing what I can to be prepared when I finish college next spring." "hat’s considered rich nowadays? I went to harvard-westlake– a high school that is generally for kids of the semi-wealthy. We are a competitive bunch!! So are all of the other prep league private schools. A MAJORITY of the students head off to ivy leagues, the rest go to top notch state schools like cal or UCLA. We have connections. We think we’re poor even when we’re rich. I feel sorry for kids who don’t have the same resources as we do– and thinking that rich kids will squander everything and not know how to compete in the real world is a fallacy that will generally work out to the rich kids’ advantage. don’t do it. the u.s. needs to take care of its middle class still!! the gap isn’t getting any smaller, I promise." "You know, there are reasons why I think that some of these blog posts are beyond ridiculous: they tend to make judgments about rich people from the outside. Go ahead and do it, but know that there are rich kids out there who may have grown up with a nice life (some might say too nice), who are still grounded in reality, don’t have slaves who will fetch them coke and good lawyers at a moment’s notice, and work hard at jobs their parents didn’t get for them. I agree most heartily with the poster who suggested that good parenting produces good kids. If you indulge your children, of course they’ll end up like Paris, but if you teach your children respect for the rest of the world, spoiled or not, it will get through. ___ Also, to imply that rich kids should end up as “good investors” or to exhibit the same drive that the ancestor who created the wealth exhibited is an unfair projection. Many more poor people don’t manage money well (can we say credit card debt?) and exhibit no drive in their careers and are unprepared for the competitive job market. _______ Suggesting that being rich should enable kids to acquire these traits is yet another reason this blog is driving me nuts. I understand that the purpose of these articles is to cut a window into the lives of the rich, but it just shows the ugly side of America’s fixation on money. Money doesn’t bring happiness. End of story. By sitting around and critiquing and judging and researching the lives of these people, who are such a small percentage of our world and whose lives no one could hope to figure out, the readers and writers do not do themselves a favor. Focus on your own family dynamics and your own giving and your own house and stay out of ours. Your children are no business of mine and I am none of yours." Etc..

Are you aware, that Iran had a democratically elected prime minister from 1951-1953, and he was overthrown via a plot between the US and the UK, and replaced with the Shah? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadeq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax Perhaps we should let these people run their own lives and nations, rather than continueing to butt in to protect "our" oil. I don't accept your premise, on which your questions are based, that we are engaged in an effort to spread democracy. We are just trying to protect oil, that some here feel we have a god given entitlement to. Refusal to accept an argument is one thing, a refutation is another. You don't need to accept the premise that an argument is based upon in order to refute it - actually disagreeing with the premise is quite helpful if this is your goal - so one would think that if my this were my premise (it isn't) and you were convinced that it was false, it would be a relatively simple matter for you to formulate a series of rebuttals which advance your own arguments to the detriment of my own. For example, I don't accept the premise upon which Creationism is based, but this in no way prevents me from both answering a question that a Creationist might present me with, and using logic and facts to incorporate a refutation of the said false premises into my answer. Moreover, whether you believe the US policy goals in the Middle East include spreading democracy or not, for example, this in no way prevents you from answering simple questions like "What would happen if the US completely disengaged from the Middle East?" If you believe that the US has been the single most important factor in suppressing, say - the emergence of modern political freedoms, protection for the rights of religious minorities, etc - in the Middle East, then one would think that the question would provide an opportunity to claim that absence of US involvement in the Middle East would be extremely beneficial for the people there, and provide whatever arguments that you could muster to support your assertion. Anyhow - the response that you were able to provide is quite revealing, more so, in many respects, than any attempt to actually answer the questions might have been, so thanks. Thanks for the hot-tip about Mossadeq as well.

Okay. The final questions are the ones that most directly pertain to people with your viewpoint, but the first three are germane as well. What is the ethically and diplomatically sound way to deal with unsavory, undemocratic regimes when the forces likely to displace them are likely to be both more repressive and more hostile to both the West and many of the rights and freedoms that (small d) democrats around the world consider - or at least claim to consider - fundamental rights that no one should be deprived of? Does the case of say - Iran - support the claim that active or tacit US support is either necessary and sufficient for the establishment of a repressive regime? Have any of you considered non-political forces that promote the development and maintenance of repressive political models? If you look around the world, it's clear that in states around the world - not just the Middle East - in which the economy is driven by a single resource, authoritarianism is the rule rather than the exception. In states in which a wide range of industries and business - which cannot easily be seized or capably administered by a single entity - generate the tax revenues that the state depends upon for its existence, some degree of public involvement in and acceptance of the political system is a necessary condition for the state's survival, and taxation guarantees some degree of representation. In states where the control of a single resource generates all of the revenues that the state needs to function, there's no need for taxation and no impetus for representation. Moreover - in this scenario, the state, rather than independent economic activity - determines who eats and who starves, who prospers and who suffers, and this is a state of affairs that provides the autonomy or material security necessary for sustained dissent. My contention here is that no matter what the US or other western powers did in the region, there'd be very strong tendencies towards autocracy there, and that these tendencies will continue to present an obstacle towards democratic reform in the region for as long as oil provides sufficient revenues for the regimes that are currently in charge there. ... I think the argument I've seen is that political repression in Arab countries has been dramatically higher as a consequence of US support - explicit or tacit - for the regimes doing the repressing, and that attacks by persons inhabiting these countries on the US and other Western powers are an outgrowth of and reaction to that repression. I am curious what the consensus is amongst people who hold this view concerning what would transpire if the US were to immediately disavow anything that could be construed as support for, and abandon all regimes in the Middle East which are undemocratic and/or repressive. Would the repression end? Stay the same? Get worse? And what implications would this have with respect to the frequency and intensity of attacks carried out against the US by citizens of these states? Does the fact that a significant number of the terrorist attacks carried out against the US and other Western powers were conducted by persons who had either lived in Europe for a number of years, or were born there, and who thus never experienced or had escaped from the type of repression in question have any bearing on your thinking about the role of US-fostered political repression in bringing about attacks of this nature?

Hey Fig 8: I have some questions of my own for folks who make the argument that's implicit in your questions on the previous page. I hope that you'll answer them.

J-Clark: I have to get back to work, and asking this question feels just a bit ridiculous, but have you had the chance to read "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright? If so - I'd be interested in hearing your take on it, if not - I think you might find it interesting.

Thanks, Jim. I'd be interested in reading your responses to the other questions I've posted if you have the time to answer them. Also - couldn't one argue that our attacks on the Taliban have galvanized radical Islamists in Pakistan and everywhere else, and have had negative impacts on public perception of the US amongst Muslims of virtually all persuasions around the globe? If one posits that whether or not an action by the US inflames radical Islamist sentiments - or gives rise to a general sense of grievance or animus towards the US - in the Muslim world should be the primary litmus test by which the advisability or inadvisability of a particular action must be judged, wouldn't considerations of this sort have ruled out any military action against the Taliban as well? What implications would such a stance, if adopted, have on constraining US actions in light of the response to a particular set of cartoons established in an obscure paper in a small Nordic country? Is there ever a point at which the significance or an importance of a particular policy goal, or a crisis of a significant magnitude would warrant taking actions that were certain to arouse significant resentment against the US in the Muslim world, and increase the number of Jihadists intent on attacking US, or should any action that had the potential to bring about either be rejected out of hand?

Do you really feel like categorizing our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a fight against Muslims is accurate? Do you think that the British Governments actions against the IRA could be best described as a non-specific fight against Catholics? Were US actions in the first Gulf War, and in Kosovo also best described as part of a fight against Muslims? Have the US attacks in Iraq and Afhghanistan - in which the overwhelming majority of the citizens are Muslims - been indiscriminately targeting all Muslims, their holy sites and shrines, etc - or is there a subset of the populations in each majority Muslim country that has been targetted, rather than the entire population? If this is a fight against Muslims that we're waging, why have there been no attacks on Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, etc?

I think the argument I've seen is that political repression in Arab countries has been dramatically higher as a consequence of US support - explicit or tacit - for the regimes doing the repressing, and that attacks by persons inhabiting these countries on the US and other Western powers are an outgrowth of and reaction to that repression. I am curious what the consensus is amongst people who hold this view concerning what would transpire if the US were to immediately disavow anything that could be construed as support for, and abandon all regimes in the Middle East which are undemocratic and/or repressive. Would the repression end? Stay the same? Get worse? And what implications would this have with respect to the frequency and intensity of attacks carried out against the US by citizens of these states? Does the fact that a significant number of the terrorist attacks carried out against the US and other Western powers were conducted by persons who had either lived in Europe for a number of years, or were born there, and who thus never experienced or had escaped from the type of repression in question have any bearing on your thinking about the role of US-fostered political repression in bringing about attacks of this nature?

Very weak showing on the baroque conspiro-mongering. Paging Buckaroo and fear_and_greed...

One more - would you be more favorably disposed towards a regime that while undemocratic, preserved certain rights and freedoms, or one that transmitted the unfettered will of the majority into law no matter what the nature of those laws might be? Turkey - where the Army has intervened to preserve the secular constitution established undemocratically by Attaturk - provides a reasonably good approximation of this scenario in the real world. Have the Army's undemocratic interventions there been beneficial or detrimental to population's well-being and our interests there?

I don't have the time necessary to read or comment on the entire letter, but after doing a bit of skimming the following questions came to mind: What is the ethically and diplomatically sound way to deal with unsavory, undemocratic regimes when the forces likely to displace them are likely to be both more repressive and more hostile to both the West and many of the rights and freedoms that (small d) democrats around the world consider - or at least claim to consider - fundamental rights that no one should be deprived of? Does the case of say - Iran - support the claim that active or tacit US support is either necessary and sufficient for the establishment of a repressive regime? Have any of you considered non-political forces that promote the development and maintenance of repressive political models? If you look around the world, it's clear that in states around the world - not just the Middle East - in which the economy is driven by a single resource, authoritarianism is the rule rather than the exception. In states in which a wide range of industries and business - which cannot easily be seized or capably administered by a single entity - generate the tax revenues that the state depends upon for its existence, some degree of public involvement in and acceptance of the political system is a necessary condition for the state's survival, and taxation guarantees some degree of representation. In states where the control of a single resource generates all of the revenues that the state needs to function, there's no need for taxation and no impetus for representation. Moreover - in this scenario, the state, rather than independent economic activity - determines who eats and who starves, who prospers and who suffers, and this is a state of affairs that provides the autonomy or material security necessary for sustained dissent. My contention here is that no matter what the US or other western powers did in the region, there'd be very strong tendencies towards autocracy there, and that these tendencies will continue to present an obstacle towards democratic reform in the region for as long as oil provides sufficient revenues for the regimes that are currently in charge there.

...Not to Worry About Overpopulation.... OdcnodkaiAI And another... PQxT2HvKRT8