All of the people involved in these foreign war debacles were highly pedigreed. (Fun fact: the President of Afghanistan, who fled Kabul yesterday, is an Ivy League-educated professor who "literally wrote the book on fixing failed states.")
The education, in fact, the problem. Universities is where people learn hare-brained ideas like Wilsonianism. It's where people learn to view government as a set of laws and policies and boxes on org charts, rather than the manifestation of the culture and political tradition of people.
Coming from a traditional Muslim country ourselves, my family knew in 2001 that nation building in Afghanistan was an absurd idea. Our own country has a thousand-year head start on Afghanistan in terms of civilization, and has still struggled with democracy. It's not in the people. But Americans are so far separated from their culture--that is to say, their village won't die of starvation if they indulge in cultural experimentation--they can't even locate the wellspring of democracy in culture and traditions.
All of the people involved in these foreign war debacles were highly pedigreed. (Fun fact: the President of Afghanistan, who fled Kabul yesterday, is an Ivy League-educated professor who "literally wrote the book on fixing failed states.")
The education, in fact, the problem. Universities is where people learn hare-brained ideas like Wilsonianism. It's where people learn to view government as a set of laws and policies and boxes on org charts, rather than the manifestation of the culture and political tradition of people.
Coming from a traditional Muslim country ourselves, my family knew in 2001 that nation building in Afghanistan was an absurd idea. Our own country has a thousand-year head start on Afghanistan in terms of civilization, and has still struggled with democracy. It's not in the people. But Americans are so far separated from their culture--that is to say, their village won't die of starvation if they indulge in cultural experimentation--they can't even locate the wellspring of democracy in culture and traditions.