Revisiting Feral Cities: France

[J.A. Terranson]

I have been watching the news from France intently over the last week or
so, as their slums have exploded into what may be a semi-permanent state
of almost-anarchy.  The entire time, these reports of the "Citizens of 39"
(or is it 93?) having an existence both outside the reach of law and at
the same time as a valuable state resource (read cheap labor pool) have
harkened back to this most interesting postulate by Mr. Norton.

Am I the only one who has been watching the fun and wondering if we are
witnessing our first feral birth?



On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, R.A. Hettinga wrote:

> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:52:33 -0500
> From: R.A. Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com>
> To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net, nation-builders at yahoogroups.com,
>      libertarian-nation at yahoogroups.com, osint at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Feral Cities
>
>
> <http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2003/Autumn/art6-a03.htm>
>
>
>
> Norton
>
>
> FERAL CITIES
>
> Richard J. Norton
>
>
> Imagine a great metropolis covering hundreds of square miles. Once a vital
> component in a national economy, this sprawling urban environment is now a
> vast collection of blighted buildings, an immense petri dish of both
> ancient and new diseases, a territory where the rule of law has long been
> replaced by near anarchy in which the only security available is that which
> is attained through brute power.1 Such cities have been routinely imagined
> in apocalyptic movies and in certain science-fiction genres, where they are
> often portrayed as gigantic versions of T. S. Eliot's Rat's Alley.2 Yet
> this city would still be globally connected. It would possess at least a
> modicum of commercial linkages, and some of its inhabitants would have
> access to the world's most modern communication and computing technologies.
> It would, in effect, be a feral city.
>
> Admittedly, the very term "feral city" is both provocative and
> controversial.  Yet this description has been chosen advisedly. The feral
> city may be a  phenomenon that never takes place, yet its emergence should
> not be dismissed  as impossible. The phrase also suggests, at least
> faintly, the nature of  what may become one of the more difficult security
> challenges of the new  century.
>
>  Over the past decade or so a great deal of scholarly attention has been
> paid to the phenomenon of failing states.3 Nor has this pursuit been
> undertaken solely by the academic community. Government leaders and
> military commanders as well as directors of nongovernmental organizations
> and intergovernmental bodies have attempted to deal with faltering,
> failing, and failed states. Involvement by the United States in such
> matters has run the gamut from expressions of concern to cautious
> humanitarian assistance to full-fledged military intervention. In contrast,
> however, there has been a significant lack of concern for the potential
> emergence of failed cities. This is somewhat surprising, as the feral city
> may prove as common a feature of the global landscape of the first decade
> of the twenty-first century as the faltering, failing, or failed state was
> in the last decade of the twentieth. While it may be premature to suggest
> that a truly feral city-with the possible exception of Mogadishu-can be
> found anywhere on the globe today, indicators point to a day, not so
> distant, when such examples will be easily found.
>
> This article first seeks to define a feral city. It then describes such  a
> city's attributes and suggests why the issue is worth international
> attention.  A possible methodology to identify cities that have the
> potential to become  feral will then be presented. Finally, the potential
> impact of feral cities  on the U.S. military, and the U.S. Navy
> specifically, will be discussed.
>
>  DEFINITION AND ATTRIBUTES
>
> The putative "feral city" is (or would be) a metropolis with a population
> of more than a million people in a state the government of which has lost
> the ability to maintain the rule of law within the city's boundaries yet
> remains a functioning actor in the greater international system.4
>
> In a feral city social services are all but nonexistent, and the vast
> majority  of the city's occupants have no access to even the most basic
> health or  security assistance. There is no social safety net. Human
> security is for  the most part a matter of individual initiative. Yet a
> feral city does  not descend into complete, random chaos. Some elements, be
> they criminals,  armed resistance groups, clans, tribes, or neighborhood
> associations, exert  various degrees of control over portions of the city.
> Intercity, city-state,  and even international commercial transactions
> occur, but corruption, avarice,  and violence are their hallmarks. A feral
> city experiences massive levels  of disease and creates enough pollution to
> qualify as an international  environmental disaster zone. Most feral cities
> would suffer from massive  urban hypertrophy, covering vast expanses of
> land. The city's structures  range from once-great buildings symbolic of
> state power to the meanest  shantytowns and slums. Yet even under these
> conditions, these cities continue  to grow, and the majority of occupants
> do not voluntarily leave.5
>
> 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. The efficacy
> and portability of the most  modern computing and communication systems
> allow the activities of a worldwide  terrorist, criminal, or predatory and
> corrupt commercial network to be  coordinated and directed with equipment
> easily obtained on the open market  and packed into a minivan. The vast
> size of a feral city, with its buildings,  other structures, and
> subterranean spaces, would offer nearly perfect protection  from overhead
> sensors, whether satellites or unmanned aerial vehicles.  The city's
> population represents for such entities a ready source of recruits  and a
> built-in intelligence network. Collecting human intelligence against  them
> in this environment is likely to be a daunting task. Should the city
> contain airport or seaport facilities, such an organization would be able
> to import and export a variety of items. The feral city environment will
> actually make it easier for an armed resistance group that does not already
> have connections with criminal organizations to make them. The linkage
> between such groups, once thought to be rather unlikely, is now so
> commonplace  as to elicit no comment.
>
>  WHAT'S NEW?
>
> But is not much of this true of certain troubled urban areas of today and
> of the past? It is certainly true that cities have long bred diseases.
> Criminal gangs have often held sway over vast stretches of urban landscape
> and slums; "projects" and shantytowns have long been part of the cityscape.
> Nor is urban pollution anything new-London was environmentally toxic in
> the 1960s. So what is different about "feral cities"?
>
>  The most notable difference is that where the police forces of the state
> have sometimes opted not to enforce the rule of law in certain urban
> localities,  in a feral city these forces will not be able to do so. Should
> the feral  city be of special importance-for example, a major seaport or
> airport-the  state might find it easier to negotiate power and
> profit-sharing arrangements  with city power centers to ensure that
> facilities important to state survival  continue to operate. For a weak
> state government, the ability of the feral  city to resist the police
> forces of the state may make such negotiations  the only option. In some
> countries, especially those facing massive development  challenges, even
> the military would be unequal to imposing legal order  on a feral city. In
> other, more developed states it might be possible to use military force to
> subdue a feral city, but the cost would be extremely  high, and the
> operation would be more likely to leave behind a field of  rubble than a
> reclaimed and functioning population center.
>
>  Other forms of state control and influence in a feral city would also be
> weak, and to an unparalleled degree. In a feral city, the state's writ
> does not run. In fact, state and international authorities would be
> massively  ignorant of the true nature of the power structures, population,
> and activities  within a feral city.
>
>  Yet another difference will be the level and nature of the security threat
> posed by a feral city. Traditionally, problems of urban decay and
> associated  issues, such as crime, have been seen as domestic issues best
> dealt with  by internal security or police forces. That will no longer be
> an option.
>
>  REASONS FOR CONCERN
>
> Indeed, the majority of threats posed by a feral city would be viewed as
> both nontraditional and transnational by most people currently involved
> with national security. Chief among the nontraditional threats are the
> potential for pandemics and massive environmental degradation, and the
> near certainty that feral cities will serve as major transshipment points
> for all manner of illicit commodities.
>
>  As has been noted, city-born pandemics are not new. Yet the toxic
> environment  of a feral city potentially poses uniquely severe threats. A
> new illness  or a strain of an existing disease could easily breed and
> mutate without  detection in a feral city. Since feral cities would not be
> hermetically  sealed, it is quite easy to envision a deadly and dangerously
> virulent  epidemic originating from such places. As of this writing, the
> SARS outbreak  of 2003 seems to offer an example of a city (Guangdong,
> China) serving  as a pathogen incubator and point of origin of an
> intercontinental epidemic.6  In the case of SARS, the existence of the
> disease was rapidly identified,  the origin was speedily traced, and a
> medical offensive was quickly mounted.  Had such a disease originated in a
> feral city, it is likely that this process would have been much more
> complicated and taken a great deal more time.  As it is, numerous diseases
> that had been believed under control have recently  mutated into much more
> drug-resistant and virulent forms.
>
> Globally, large cities are already placing significant environmental stress
> on their local and regional environments, and nowhere are these problems
> more pronounced than in coastal metropolises. A feral city-with minimal  or
> no sanitation facilities, a complete absence of environmental controls,
> and a massive population-would be in effect a toxic-waste dump, poisoning
> coastal waters, watersheds, and river systems throughout their hinterlands.7
>
> Major cities containing ports or airfields are already trying to contend
> with black-market activity that ranges from evading legal fees, dues, or
> taxes to trafficking in illegal and banned materials. Black marketeers  in
> a feral city would have carte blanche to ship or receive such materials  to
> or from a global audience.8
>
> As serious as these transnational issues are, another threat is potentially
> far more dangerous. The anarchic allure of the feral city for criminal  and
> terrorist groups has already been discussed. The combination of large
> profits from criminal activity and the increasing availability of all
> families  of weapons might make it possible for relatively small groups to
> acquire  weapons of mass destruction. A terrorist group in a feral city
> with access  to world markets, especially if it can directly ship material
> by air or  sea, might launch an all but untraceable attack from its urban
> haven.
>
>  GOING FERAL
>
> Throughout history, major cities have endured massive challenges without
> "going feral." How could it be determined that a city is at risk of
> becoming  feral? What indicators might give warning? Is a warning system
> possible?
>
>  The answer is yes. This article offers just such a model, a taxonomy
> consisting  of twelve sets of measurements, grouped into four main
> categories.9 In  it, measurements representing a healthy city are "green,"
> those that would  suggest cause for concern are "yellow," and those that
> indicate danger,  a potentially feral condition, "red." In the table below,
> the upper blocks  in each category (column) represent positive or healthy
> conditions, those  at the bottom unhealthy ones.
>
>  The first category assesses the ability of the state to govern the city.
> A city "in the green" has a healthy, stable government-though not
> necessarily  a democratically elected one. A democratic city leadership is
> perhaps the  most desirable, but some cities governed by authoritarian
> regimes could  be at extremely low risk of becoming feral. City governments
> "in the green"  would be able to enact effective legislation, direct
> resources, and control  events in all parts of the city at all times.10 A
> yellow indication would  indicate that city government enjoyed such
> authority only in portions of  the city, producing what might be called
> "patchwork" governance, or that  it exerted authority only during the
> day-"diurnal" governance. State authorities  would be unable to govern a
> "red" city at all, or would govern in name  only.11 An entity within the
> city claiming to be an official representative  of the state would simply
> be another actor competing for resources and  power.
>
> THE HEALTH OF CITIES
>
>
>
> Government
>
> Economy
>
> Services
>
> Security
>
> Healthy
>
>
>
>  Enacts effective
>  legislation, directs resources, controls events in all  portions of the
> city all the time. Not corrupt.
>
>  Robust. Significant foreign investment. Provides goods and services.
> Possesses  stable and adequate tax base.
>
>  Complete range of services, including educational and cultural, available
> to all city residents.
>
>  Well regulated by professional, ethical police forces. Quick response to
> wide spectrum of requirements.
>
>  Marginal
>
>
>
>   Exercises only "patchwork" or
>  "diurnal" control.
>  Highly corrupt.
>
>  Limited/no foreign investment. Subsidized or decaying industries and
> growing  deficits.
>
>  Can manage minimal level of public health, hospital access, potable water,
> trash disposal.
>
>  Little regard for legality/human rights. Police often matched/ stymied  by
> criminal "peers."
>
>  Going Feral
>
>
>
>  At best has negotiated zones of control; at worst does not exist.
>
>  Either local subsistence industries or industry based on illegal commerce.
>
>  Intermittent to nonexistent power and water. Those who can afford to will
> privately contract.
>
>  Nonexistent. Security is attained through private means or paying protection.
>
>  The second category involves the city's economy. Cities "in the green"
> would enjoy a productive mix of foreign investment, service and
> manufacturing  activities, and a robust tax base. Cities afforded a
> "yellow" rating would  have ceased to attract substantial foreign
> investment, be marked by decaying  or heavily subsidized industrial
> facilities, and suffer from ever-growing  deficits. Cities "in the red"
> would have no governmental tax base. Any  industrial activity within their
> boundaries would be limited to subsistence-level  manufacturing and trade
> or to illegal trafficking-in smuggled materials,  weapons, drugs, and so on.
>
>  The third category is focused on city services. Cities with a "green"
> rating  would not only have a complete array of essential services but
> would provide  public education and cultural facilities to their
> populations. These services  would be available to all sectors without
> distinction or bias. Cities with  a yellow rating would be lacking in
> providing education and cultural opportunities  but would be able to
> maintain minimal levels of public health and sanitation.  Trash pickup,
> ambulance service, and access to hospitals would all exist.  Such a city's
> water supply would pass minimum safety standards. In contrast,  cities in
> the "red" zone would be unable to supply more than intermittent  power and
> water, some not even that.
>
>  Security is the subject of the fourth category. "Green" cities, while
> obviously  not crime free, would be well regulated by professional, ethical
> police  forces, able to respond quickly to a wide spectrum of threats.
> "Yellow"  cities would be marked by extremely high crime rates, disregard
> of whole  families of "minor crimes" due to lack of police resources, and
> criminal  elements capable of serious confrontations. A "yellow" city's
> police force  would have little regard for individual rights or legal
> constraints. In  a "red" city, the police force has failed altogether or
> has become merely  another armed group seeking power and wealth. Citizens
> must provide for  their own protection, perhaps by hiring independent
> security personnel  or paying protection to criminal organizations.
>
>  A special, overarching consideration is corruption. Cities "in the green"
> are relatively corruption free. Scandals are rare enough to be newsworthy,
> and when corruption is uncovered, self-policing mechanisms effectively
> deal with it. Corruption in cities "in the yellow" would be much worse,
> extending to every level of the city administration. In yellow cities,
> "patchwork" patterns might reflect which portions of the city were able  to
> buy security and services and which were not. As for "red"cities, it  would
> be less useful to speak of government corruption than of criminal  and
> individual opportunism, which would be unconstrained.
>
>  CITY "MOSAICS"
>
> The picture of a city that emerges is a mosaic, and like an artist's mosaic
> it can be expected to contain more than one color. Some healthy cities
> function with remarkable degrees of corruption. Others, robust and vital
> in many ways, suffer from appalling levels of criminal activity. Even a
> city with multiple "red" categories is not necessarily feral-yet. It is
> the overall pattern and whether that pattern is improving or deteriorating
> over time that give the overall diagnosis.
>
>  It is important to remember a diagnostic tool such as this merely produces
> a "snapshot" and is therefore of limited utility unless supported by trend
> analysis. "Patchwork" and "diurnal" situations can exist in all the
> categories;  an urban center with an overall red rating-that is, a feral
> city-might  boast a tiny enclave where "green" conditions prevail; quite
> healthy cities  experience cycles of decline and improvement. Another
> caution concerns  the categories themselves. Although useful indicators of
> a city's health,  the boundaries are not clearly defined but can be
> expected to blur.
>
>  The Healthy City: New York. To some it would seem that New York is an odd
> example of a "green" city. One hears and recalls stories of corruption,
> police brutality, crime, pollution, neighborhoods that resemble war zones,
> and the like. Yet by objective indicators (and certainly in the opinion  of
> the majority of its citizens) New York is a healthy city and in no risk  of
> "going feral." Its police force is well regulated, well educated, and
> responsive. The city is a hub of national and international investment.  It
> generates substantial revenues and has a stable tax base. It provides  a
> remarkable scope of services, including a wide range of educational and
> cultural opportunities. Does this favorable evaluation mean that the rich
> are not treated differently from the poor, that services and infrastructure
> are uniformly well maintained, or that there are no disparities of economic
> opportunity or race? Absolutely not. Yet despite such problems New York
> remains a viable municipality.
>
>  The Yellow Zone: Mexico City. This sprawling megalopolis of more than
> twenty  million continues to increase in size and population every year. It
> is  one of the largest urban concentrations in the world. As the seat of
> the  Mexican government, it receives a great deal of state attention.
> However,  Mexico City is now described as an urban nightmare.12
>
> Mexico City's air is so polluted that it is routinely rated medically as
> unfit to breathe. There are square miles of slums, often without sewage  or
> running water. Law and order is breaking down at an accelerating rate.
> Serious crime has doubled over the past three to four years; it is
> estimated  that 15.5 million assaults now occur every year in Mexico City.
> Car-jacking  and taxi-jacking have reached such epidemic proportions that
> visitors are  now officially warned not to use the cabs. The Mexico City
> police department  has ninety-one thousand officers-more men than the
> Canadian army-but graft  and corruption on the force are rampant and on the
> rise. According to Mexican  senator Adolfo Zinser, police officers
> themselves directly contribute to  the city's crime statistics: "In the
> morning they are a policeman. In the  afternoon they're crooks." The city's
> judicial system is equally corrupt.  Not surprisingly, these aspects of
> life in Mexico City have reduced the  willingness of foreign investors to
> send money or representatives there.13
>
> Johannesburg: On a Knife Edge. As in many South African cities, police  in
> Johannesburg are waging a desperate war for control of their city, and  it
> is not clear whether they will win. Though relatively small in size,  with
> only 2.9 million official residents, Johannesburg nevertheless experiences
> more than five thousand murders a year and at least twice as many rapes.
> Over the last several years investors and major industry have fled the
> city. Many of the major buildings of the Central Business District have
> been abandoned and are now home to squatters. The South African National
> Stock Exchange has been removed to Sandton-a safer northern suburb. Police
> forces admit they do not control large areas of the city; official
> advisories  warn against driving on certain thoroughfares. At night
> residents are advised  to remain in their homes. Tourism has dried up, and
> conventions, once an  important source of revenue, are now hosted elsewhere
> in the country.
>
>  The city also suffers from high rates of air pollution, primarily from
> vehicle exhaust but also from the use of open fires and coal for cooking
> and heating. Johannesburg's two rivers are also considered unsafe,
> primarily  because of untreated human waste and chemicals leaching from
> piles of mining  dross. Mining has also contaminated much of the soil in
> the vicinity.
>
>  Like those of many states and cities in Africa, Johannesburg's problems
> are exacerbated by the AIDS epidemic. Nationally it is feared the number
> of infected persons may reach as high as 20 percent of the population.  All
> sectors of the economy have been affected adversely by the epidemic,
> including in Johannesburg.14
>
> Although Mexico City and Johannesburg clearly qualify for "yellow" and
> "red" status, respectively, it would be premature to predict that either of
> these urban centers will inevitably become feral. Police corruption has
> been an aspect of Mexico City life for decades; further, the recent
> transition from one political party to two and a downswing in the state
> economy may be having a temporarily adverse influence on the city. In the
> case of Johannesburg, the South African government has most definitely not
> given up on attempts to revive what was once an industrial and economic
> showplace. In both Mexico and South Africa there are dedicated men and
> women who are determined to eliminate corruption, clean the environment,
> and better the lives of the people. Yet a note of caution is appropriate,
> for in neither example is the trend in a positive direction.
>
>  Further-and it should come as no surprise-massive cities in the developing
> world are at far greater risk of becoming feral than those in more
> developed  states. Not only are support networks in such regions much less
> robust,  but as a potentially feral city grows, it consumes progressively
> more resources.15  Efforts to meet its growing needs often no more than
> maintain the status  quo or, more often, merely slow the rate of decay of
> government control  and essential services. All this in turn reduces the
> resources that can  be applied to other portions of the country, and it may
> well increase the  speed of urban hypertrophy. However, even such developed
> states as Brazil  face the threat of feral cities. For example, in March
> 2003 criminal cartels  controlled much of Rio de Janeiro. Rio police would
> not enter these areas,  and in effect pursued toward them a policy of
> containment.16
>
> FERAL CITIES AND THE U.S. MILITARY
>
> Feral cities do not represent merely a sociological or urban-planning
> issue;  they present unique military challenges. Their very size and
> densely built-up  character make them natural havens for a variety of
> hostile nonstate actors,  ranging from small cells of terrorists to large
> paramilitary forces and  militias. History indicates that should such a
> group take American hostages,  successful rescue is not likely.17 Combat
> operations in such environments  tend to be manpower intensive; limiting
> noncombatant casualties can be  extraordinarily difficult. An enemy more
> resolute than that faced in the  2003 war with Iraq could inflict
> substantial casualties on an attacking  force. The defense of the Warsaw
> ghetto in World War II suggests how effectively  a conventional military
> assault can be resisted in this environment. Also,  in a combat operation
> in a feral city the number of casualties from pollutants,  toxins, and
> disease may well be higher than those caused by the enemy.
>
>  These environmental risks could also affect ships operating near a feral
> city. Its miles-long waterfront may offer as protected and sheltered a
> setting for antishipping weapons as any formal coastal defense site.
> Furthermore,  many port cities that today, with proper security procedures,
> would be  visited for fuel and other supplies will, if they become feral,
> no longer  be available. This would hamper diplomatic efforts, reduce the
> U.S. Navy's  ability to show the flag, and complicate logistics and supply
> for forward-deployed  forces.
>
>  Feral cities, as and if they emerge, will be something new on the
> international landscape. Cities have descended into savagery in the past,
> usually as a result of war or civil conflict, and armed resistance groups
> have operated out of urban centers before. But feral cities, as such, will
> be a new phenomenon and will pose security threats on a scale hitherto not
> encountered.18 It is questionable whether the tools, resources, and
> strategies that would be required to deal with these threats exist at
> present. But given the indications of the imminent emergence of feral
> cities, it is time to begin creating the means.
>
>
> NOTES
>
> 1. I am indebted to my colleague Dr. James Miskel for the "petri dish"
> analogy.
>
>  2. Thomas Stern Eliot, "The Wasteland," in The New Oxford Book of English
> Verses: 1250-1950, ed. Helen Gardner (New York: Oxford University Press,
> 1972), p. 881.
>
>  3. See, for example, James F. Miskel and Richard J. Norton, "Spotting
> Trouble:  Identifying Faltering and Failing States," Naval War College
> Review 50,  no. 2 (Spring 1997), pp. 79-91.
>
>  4. Perhaps the most arbitrary component of this definition is the
> selection  of a million inhabitants as a defining characteristic of a feral
> city.  An earlier approach to this issue focused on megacities, cities with
> more  than ten million inhabitants. However, subsequent research indicated
> that  much smaller cities could also become feral, and so the population
> threshold  was reduced. For more information on concepts of urbanization
> see Stanley  D. Brunn, Jack F. Williams, and Donald J. Zeigler, Cities of
> the World:  World Regional Urban Development (Lanham, Md.: Rowman &
> Littlefield, 2003),  pp. 5-14.
>
>  5. Such a pattern is already visible today. See Brunn, Williams, and
> Zeigler,  chap. 1.
>
>  6. "China Criticized for Dragging Feet on Outbreak," News in Science, 7
> April 2003, p. 1.
>
>  7. The issue of pollution stemming from coastal cities is well documented.
> For example, see chapter two of United Nations Environmental Program,
> Global  Environmental Outlook-2000 (London: Earthscan, 2001).
>
>  8. The profits involved in such enterprises can be staggering. For
> example,  the profits from smuggled cigarettes in 1997 were estimated to be
> as high  as sixteen billion dollars a year. Among the identified major
> smuggling  centers were Naples, Italy; Hong Kong; and Bogota, Colombia.
> Raymond Bonner  and Christopher Drew, "Cigarette Makers Are Seen as Aiding
> Rise in Smuggling,"  New York Times, 26 August 1997, C1.
>
>  9. A similar approach was used in Miskel and Norton, cited above, for
> developing  a taxonomy for identifying failing states.
>
>  10. This is not to imply that such a city would be 100 percent law-abiding
> or that incidents of government failure could not be found. But these
> conditions  would be the exception and not the rule.
>
>  11. Not that this would present no complications. It is likely that states
> containing a feral city would not acknowledge a loss of sovereignty over
> the metropolis, even if this were patently the case. Such claims could
> pose a significant obstacle to collective international action.
>
>  12. Transcript, PBS Newshour, "Taming Mexico City," 12 January 1999,
> available at www.Pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_American/jan-jun99/mexico
> [accessed 15 June 2003].
>
>  13. Compiled from a variety of sources, most notably "Taming Mexico City,"
> News Hour with Jim Lehrer, transcript, 12 January 1999.
>
>  14. Compiled from a variety of sources, including BBC reports.
>
>  15. Brunn, Williams, and Zeigler, p. 37.
>
>  16. Interview, Dr. Peter Liotta, with the author, Newport, R.I., 14 April
> 2003.
>
>  17. While the recent successful rescue of Army Private First Class Jessica
> Lynch during the 2003 Iraq War demonstrates that success in such operations
> is not impossible, U.S. experiences with hostages in Iran, Lebanon, and
> Somalia would suggest failure is a more likely outcome.
>
>  18. It is predicted that 60 percent of the world's population will live
> in an urban environment by the year 2030, as opposed to 47 percent in 2000.
> Furthermore, the majority of this growth will occur in less developed
> countries,  especially in coastal South Asia. More than fifty-eight cities
> will boast  populations of more than five million people. Brunn, Williams,
> and Zeigler,  pp. 9-11.
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Yours,

J.A. Terranson
sysadmin at mfn.org
0xBD4A95BF


I like the idea of belief in drug-prohibition as a religion in that it is
a strongly held belief based on grossly insufficient evidence and
bolstered by faith born of intuitions flowing from the very beliefs they
are intended to support.

don zweig, M.D.