Comments on Obama's Got a (Foreign Policy) Posse

We won't support ball-less NO-Bama and will re-defeat him in November!!!

Isn't there some sort of provision for blocking spammers like the above?

This is interesting ... but strikingly at odds with the entire corpus of empirical study of extremism and terrorism.

Maybe it's just somebody's misunderstanding of somebody's misunderstanding of something somebody said.

Ryan,
I've read Ms. Power's book "The Problem From Hell". Very good. But, I highly doubt her approach to Foreign Policy would work in the real world. Allieviating poverty and ignorance ("dignity promotion") are honorable goals but they won't stop Al-Qaeda from operating. The Clinton Administration had an engaging policy. It didn't prevent at least two genocides and the Somalia debacle. It takes a generational change in attitudes about female empowerment, democracy, human development and religion/culture. It's not just poverty and ignorance that's creating jihadists. Never forget about 1/3 of the 9/11 bombers came from wealthy, cultivated and educated families.

@2 - no, they can't block the McSame office apparently ...

Part of respecting a people is not empowering their oppressors. When the aide we send goes to the corrupt and never reaches the people, they suspect we are not respecting them. Combine that with resentment for our satiated lifestyles and you get a class dedicated to our destruction.

Yuo poverty does not cause terrorism. OBL very, very rich, and many of the ones we caught were highly educated.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh very poor and produces no terrorists.

this is not to say we shouldn't use our sfoter power of doing right in the Muslim world of course.

Oh and Obama's speech didn't focus on ending poverty but on building up our military strength in Afg. to beat the fuckers with violence and force.

um, actually, having spent a bit of time in the middle east I can confirm that there is something to this dignity idea. The countries that are stable are countries where the gov't (not always a democracy, by the way) has decided that it is really important to make sure people have jobs and security and can feed their families (Jordan, for example. Whose stability is being challenged as the influx of wealthy foreigners forces the cost of living higher and higher). And yes, Osama bin Laden was from an extremely wealthy family, but he didn't get on our terrorist list until after he had a falling out with our friends in the Saudi Royal Family. You also may have noticed that he wasn't on any crashing planes. And it was only AFTER the falling out with the Sauds that he started to target the US. As for the identities of the people involved in the WTC attacks, I remember reading that nearly all of them were Saudi, and 1 from Lebanon. Even if you are wealthy and from KSA, you still don't have a lot of opportunities, the power distribution there is very very bizarre, and religion and drifting are among the only real hobbies available to an 18-25 year old guy. And let's just say the fellow from Lebanon was not from the Hariri family.

@8
I don't disagree with you. I, too spent time in the Near East and 3 years in a predominately Muslim country. I am merely saying "soft power" or "killing 'em with kindness" doesn't necessarily work. There is an entrenched culture that even with the great wealth of the few doesn't auger change for all. Turkey, Jordan and perhaps Dubai are relatively progressive in that order. But, Iran, KSA, Yemen and others are not. Of them, KSA is probably the most reactionary conservative country on earth. And, one of the wealthiest.