Letters to the Editor
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We cannot afford his style of engagement with the world
He could do to this country what those old Soviet generals did to theirs. Bleed it dry with military overreach and paranoia.
Except this time we're trying to modernize TWO tribal societies at the point of a gun, instead of just one.
I can't see any example in history where this kind of task has ever been successfully accomplished before.
Soldiers are not socio-economic engineers, unless the job is demolition.
Tribalism is a socio-economic system that is probably the oldest and most resilient form of human self-organization in existence.
You can't just wave some magic gun and convert pre-modern tribalists into modern socialists -- as the USSR tried to do -- or into modern democrats -- as we're trying to do.
I don't see any sign whatsoever that McCain understands any of this any better than those old Soviet generals understood it.