'New American Century' will be precisely as successful as the old USSR 5, 10 and 50 year plans: which is to say they will be a. corrupt, and b. collapse of their own weight. There is no way 300 million rich, spoiled people will be able to control 6 billion people who are just trying to feed their children.

The rah-rah stuff American media are sadly pushing at the moment will fade. Sure, Saddam will scoot, probably on his own terms, but the 'rebuilding' of Iraq will go no better than the rebuilding of Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran and other places American governements tried to 'democratize' in the past couple decades. Jay Rockefeller said, this morning, that 'Iraqis won't be ready for democracy for a century'. I think Jay is at least as big a part of the problem as the Iraq street is.

Whether it's good or bad for the target populations, like the Iraqis, this week, is irrelevant as long as they don't want to buy, or even tolerate, what's being pushed down their throats. 1.2 billion angry, impoverished, ignored people, will turn out one hell of a lot of suicide bombers, Al-Quaeda cells, and probably, worse.

Check back one year from now: are Americans more secure? Or are we, like Britons, French, Germans et al. before us, recluses nervous about random, unexplainable acts of violence against us, all over the world? We may wind up making the world safer for everyone who *isn't* American...
Comments 10:26:18 PM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures