Review of Charlie Wilson's War (2007) by Thomas E — 13 Aug 2013

At the end Charles Wilson states that we *beep* up by not rebuilding the country. But if affluence in a country liberalizes it, shouldn't we have liberal democracies in rich countries like Saudi Arabia, not a cradle of Islamic terrorism? You just can't transform a country into a liberal democracy by throwing money at it !

A rich, highly educated Islamic radical is still a radical. A poor, uneducated democrat is still a democrat. Cultural and religious milieu cannot be quickly changed through economic, or even educational, influxes.

The only way to quickly transform a culture is by force. That's what Mao did during Cultural Revolution. And that's what Soviets did in other Muslim countries, and tried doing it in Afghanistan.

The paradox is how do you instill liberalism by force ? If you let regressive people vote, they'll vote in another regressive (e.g. Egypt's Mohamed Morsi). So to prevent regressive people from voting in a regressive dictator, you need another regressive dictator.