Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Did I misunderstand?

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Robert — (archived)

Cultural reform is an example of a non-military approach to fighting terrorism. I knew you had it in you...;-)

I would add political and economic reform, and both are tightly intertwined in the Middle East. We have a lot of control over the economic side, when you consider that a widespread grievance of the terrorists is what they call "American economic imperialism". This isn't about the merits of capitalism or anything so philosophical, but about the practical reality that multinationals find it more convenient to work with existing feudal power structures, whose serfs then blame America for the system their sheiks and monarchs inflict upon them. I'd say that our "friends" in these situations, like the Saudis, find it convenient to use us as a scapegoat to deflect their people's ire. We could deprive the economic issue of oxygen if we could find a way to get around the feudalistic oligarchs and spread some of the wealth around among the people by involving them directly in free enterprise. That's by no means making a concession, but rather being truer to our principles and demonstrating them in action.

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