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Feral cities would exert an almost magnetic influence on terrorist organizations. Such megalopolises will provide exceptionally safe havens for armed resistance groups, especially those having cultural affinity with at least one sizable segment of the city's population.
Yet Mogadishu did *not* provide an exceptionally safe haven for terrorists On the contrary, terrorists hang out where there are strong governments to protect them, extremely strong governments, govenments that attempt to exercise totalitarian control over every aspect of every person's life, speech, and thought. They hung out in Taliban Afghanistan, and today they hang out in Syria. Terrorists, as we discovered in Afghanistan, tend to piss people off. They need a government that is strong enough to intimidate the locals to refrain from killing them. This hand wringing about failed states is nonsense. We would be a lot better off if more regimes failed - starting with Saudi Arabia, which is at present walking both sides of the road on terror, and speaking out of both sides of its mouth. We should send arms to those that hate the current Saudi regime - and worry which of those who received our arms are good guys and which are bad guys after the regime falls. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG lYYew1mXLqlqClNWre3iWNTQSdUjC3dM+wojwWKP 4ZzkUnYtfu/tX/c5VsLePUrbbJ15Ww5uBlRvLj+Ut