Blackfive strikes again

Great point made here on my favorite milblog, Blackfive.

I would add that not only is government money worth fighting and killing for in a failed state where there is no other money, but government money is often gigantic, because of oil and other resources.

It isn't just the difference between survival and starvation, it's the difference between VAST WEALTH and starvation.

Remember the position so many Africans find themselves in next time you want to say that all cultures and ways of doing things are morally equivalent to ours.

Because some ways are just dreadful, some cultures are madness, some governments are just semi-organized crime.

Solzhenitsyn tried to warn us back in the 1970s that not all 'other people' were anxiously trying to be more like the West, that some took affront at the idea they should change to liberal democracy, that some strongly cling to their own ways and hate the West on principle.

With that warning to heart, I still believe Western ways are better than barbarism and tribalism and Stalinism. I still believe people everywhere would be better off to adopt at least some of the principles of the western world.

Economic reality, though, often dictates political will.