I was just scrolling through the Last Samurai post when I came across an interesting comment Glyph referred too about

"people who were essentially similar to the Taliban in their outlook" in reference to the Samurai.

{sorry I dont use this enough to get the exact quote pasted in here.}

That statement is emblematic of serious problem that has been plaguing American foreign policy, when and attempt is not made to understand individual cultures in light of their value systems not your own the decisions you make regarding them are inherently flawed.

In the movie this manifests its self when the Americans refer to the Samurai as "savages" and assume they will just fold under the weight of superior western technology. As a result the Imperial army gets its ass handed to it at the beginning.

This has a definite corollary in the real world of international affairs, {historical inacuracy of the movie aside}, Bare with me and I'll tie a few points together here and I'd love to hear what the rest of you think.

Forgeign Policy is ALL about self interest, mainly the rational self interest of competing states in a "chaotic" international system.

Painting the world in terms of Good and evil as the white house has done blurs the line between self interest and idealism. This severely limits your options for forgein policy choices and is a Really bad idea.

Case in point the Axis of Evil
North Korea has Nuclear weapons or at least the capability to build them, This makes them a Major regional power capable of massive force projection. ie. Respect the North Koreas because they have a credible threat.
To call them evil is to deny them the respect we give other Nuclear regional powers, India and pakistan for example.
They get no respect? They have a way around that... Produce more weapons grade uranium. THATS defiantly NOT IN OUR INTEREST. So why would we force them into a postion where its nesscary?

Lastly {Because I have to get back to writing a paper and this is just getting way longer than I intended} DEMOCRACY IS NOT APPROPREATE FOR ALL CULTURES ALL THE TIME.
Its not like we have'nt tried forcing democracy down peoples throats before, after WW1 Europe was full of democratic parliments, but because it was imposed on them and they did not fight for it themselves they did not really value it in the same way we did so they cast it aside for something else it when it was was'nt working out so well... What'd they get in stead? Nazi's.

Its also incredibly expensive to maintain a democracy, We have problems with our elections and you wanna impose it someplace were Warlordism is still a major problem? With out infrastructure and authority are you gonna enforce those elections? RGPs and Ak-47s have a funny way of blocking elected politicians for taking office.

Hmmm this turned into a nice soap box rant. lol I make no appologies for gramatical errors, I do philosophy and poltical thought not "buff and polish"

Not really Shadowrunny, is it?

If you want to talk about stuff like that, use my sig.

This has been your regularly scheduled promotional announcement.

lol hmmm suppose not I just started writing and kinda forgot what forum it was.

What moosegod said. Go to Utopia-Politics, or Bulldrek, or Underground for non-Shadowrun/gaming discussions.