oh good, by dint of presidential fiat my country's military is being gutted today

[Nowhere Man 1966]

All that money spent on the military didn't stop a few fanatics with box-cutters from crashing planes into buildings. Or a nutcase getting into the British subway and killing a few people there. More money will not solve the worlds problems.

I came out of hiding myself here. Yeah, it seems like with all the high tech expensive toys we have, it can still come down to being defeated or at least given a hard time by someone who would use a much lower tech to fight back or some other way. It is like the old Kurt Vonnegut story, "Manned Missiles" (1958) where the technology has gotten so good on both sides, most battles were ended in a stalemate so they decide to go back to using piloted aircraft and kamakaze missiles to outwit the high tech computer controlled missiles and planes. I saw on the website, www.tvtropes.org, where there are plenty of examples of "rock beats laser."

Chuck

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Well, make some decent Australian sitcoms, I'll watch them!

But I've said that for a long time. You can't force democracy on a people at gunpoint. Pretty much, an outside culture cannot do "nation building." The people have to be ready for democracy and they have to want to come out of the stone age. The Afghan people aren't ready for either. Most of the rest of the Middle East are people who have a Middle Ages mindset but are playing with 21st century toys. That does make them dangerous, but no one can force them into the 21st century except the people of those countries themselves.

In short, it is a whole different world and outlook over there, they are still under the tribal idea of needed a strongman leader. I know we nation built in Japan and Germany after WWII, but Germany is a Western nation with common values and although Japan still held the views of the Samurai, they had enough taste of the Western way of life to be able to accept a Western form of government.

Chuck