War in Iraq, Afghanistan,(and Iran and Syia?)

I was opposed to the war in Iraq for about a year, unconvinced of the basic arguments for the conflict. I still don't buy the rationale that our military members are dying to help the Iraqis have their own modern, prosperous, democratic government. Democracy is over-rated, for one thing. Democracy is rule of the mob, by the mob, for the mob. If the arabs get true democracy, they will get one man, one vote, one time. Not worth dying for at all.

In my mind, there is only one excuse for maintaining a western troop presence in the muslim arab world. Muslim arabs have different brains than westerners. The Koran is qualitatively different than any "book of wisdom" that most westerners now take seriously. Tribal arab traditions are thousands of years away from modern western mores and traditions.

Currently, there is an arab youth bulge (also present in Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and many other muslim nations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East). Arab and other muslim youth are easily led into jihad by their imams, mullahs, ayatollahs and other clerics. One fanatical suicidal jihadi can do billions, even trillions of dollars of economic destruction, and kill many thousands of lives, if backed up by enough money and weapons expertise. It's not a laughing matter to be brushed aside as if it did not exist.

It's like the Dutch boy with his finger plugging the leaking dike. Temporarily, while this youth bulge lasts, it may very well be necessary to plug a large number "badly leaking holes" in the muslim (esp arab) world. People we care about will probably die in doing this. That's not a matter to be brushed aside either. But death in this inevitable conflict is a given.

How much death will be inevitable? How little death can we get away with and still keep fanatical and collectivist forces at bay? After all, once the next level kicks in, all of forces of collectivism and religious fanaticsm will be ineffectual against the potency of next level humans. But it will take time to midwife the next level, and the muslim youth bulge will continue during that time. In addition, the pressure cooker that is China, and the doomed ship that is Russia will continue to accumulate and improve the accuracy of their nuclear arsenals. Pacifism is not an option for the big kid on the block, the king of the hill.

So how small can we keep the death toll? More later.