There's an old Star Trek episode in which Kirk and crew beam down to a planet that had been influenced by organized crime in Chicago. A whole planet run by organized crime. It made for a kind of silly episode since the concept was so absurd.
And yet much of the population in the middle east lives in an environment in which organized crime runs their daily lives. This outstanding article (posted at USS Clueless) gives a detailed look at the situation in that region.
For all the idiotic claims that US action was driven by the OOOOIILLL, it is easy to forget that the combined GNP of all the middle east, with all their oil wealth is less than half that of California alone. Needless to say, no one ever accused anti-war protesters of being particularly bright. Not too many business majors in the anti-war crowd I suspect.
The middle east is just such a mess. And they have no one to blame but themselves. An apathetic population has allowed gangsterism to take over. For all the talk about Islam as a religion of peace, you don't see too many heads being chopped off elsewhere. The American left and intelligentsia in Europe are always ready to excuse the monstrous behavior on public display in the middle east. It's almost a politically correct form of racism. As if the Islamic world are childlike in their understanding of adult civilized behavior and hence can be excused. You can imagine the world reaction would be if Americans started arbitrarily rounding up Muslims and chopped off their heads. Heck, imagine the damage even a hundred fanatical Americans, well armed and trained could do throughout the Muslim world. Luckily for them, Americans do behave in an adult civilized way.
Those who oppose US actions in the middle east haven't come forward with any constructive alternatives to current US actions. At best, we get impotent whining about Israel -- as if a country of a dozen million can be blamed for the vile behavior occurring in countries with a combined population of around 400 million.
Something has to be done. The corruption of the thugocracies in the middle east is affecting the rest of the world now as 9/11 made painfully clear. I can't say I'm terribly happy with how the US occupation in Iraq has gone but I certainly can't think of any realistic alternatives than aggressive military action in the middle east to reshape it so that order and the rule of law can be firmly established in that part of the world and the hateful extremists can be weeded out.
We tried doing nothing for 8 years and that didn't work out too well. I fear that things are going to get a lot bloodier all around before things get better.
