...but I wont play along. germany has benefitted by being the hub of Europe. Travelers would come and settle down and the gene pool was never stagnant. England, Ireland, Japan and other islands have had a tougher go of it for many years and only by exploring and venturing to new lands did they spare themselves.

Standardized IQ tests are not available for Afganistan or Iraq - and my extrapolation comes from literacy rates and similar studies provided by the UN and other organizations.

lead polluted regions also retard the IQ as this article & study points out.

<A HREF="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php@URL_ID=10513&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html";
>In the 1950's UNESCO found 44% of the world to be illiterate. It would be hard to develop and administer an IQ test to those folks.

In 2001, fifty years later, UNESCO found not much had changed in the middle east:

ILLITERACY

1% progress per year
Rate of illiterates is 38.5% (Age 15+)
Illiteracy range from 5% - 53% (for women from 2% - 66%)
Number of illiterates is large: 68 million (2000)
70% (48 million) are in 5 States
Egypt 17
Morocco 10
Sudan 7
Yemen 7
Algeria 7 = 48
Illiteracy is the most serious problem for the Arab States

One can casually extrapolate IQ scores from such illiteracy rates by comparing them to IQs of illiterates in the US or where folks are tested. It's not precise and my thirty point spread is a rough hewn guess - but your attempt to wash the whole issue away because no one administers IQ tests in these regions doesn't make the point any less valid. PC folks love to avoid anything that might cast another "nationality", "race" or "group" in a bad light.

You're suffering from the Cinderalla complex my dear* - a belief that all non-western nations are victims of oppression and that their meanness or ignorance is a veil cloaked around them by the west to hide their inner peace and serene beauty.

It's a fantasy. Partly borne out by a sort of western guilt complex - the modern day liberal neurosis for living comfortably while others suffer. Somehow we must be to blame.

This shows you have a big heart...but you wear your hat one size too tight. It does not advance these peoples by protesting their equality any more than it will get a morbidly obese girl voted prom queen.

The world's peoples are not equal. They are not equal in intelligence. They are not equal in disposition. They are not equal in lifespan. They are not equal in civility. They are not equal in opportunity. They are not equal in almost every measure of a man or a woman.

Even if the social utopia of the modern Marxists were realized - many folks would still be unequal to others and given handouts and excuses. They would resent the handouts and those who keep mouthing that they are equal when it is so painfully obvious that they are not.

"Let free men remain free and their inequality increases almost geometrically."

The world and its various systems and governments have proven this statement out.

If you want to live in a fantasyland wherein the Germans and Japanese were NOT closer in intelligence to their US occupiers than the Iraqis or the Afghans - be my guest. What is the going rate for a lifelong pass to the Magic Kingdom these days anyway?

SDAI-Tech1

*Is that chauvinistic enough for you "my dear"...I know you so badly want me to address you like that and use such analogies so I can fulfill your stereotype of conservatives.

;-)