Feral Cities

[James A. Donald]

    --
> 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. 

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         James A. Donald
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