| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
23 Apr 2006 03:44:58 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Old States, New Threats |
Old States, New Threats
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101772.html
You know these bad guys. But there is a whole other world of tyrants,
dictators and despots.
By Robert D. Kaplan
Sunday, April 23, 2006; Page B01
Crossing a border has always carried a special drama. Moments after my
train crossed from Hungary to Romania in the 1980s -- from a country
run by a liberal communist regime to one under the banana
republic-style jackboot of Nicolae Ceausescu -- the Romanian customs
officials tried to confiscate my typewriter. It was the reverse of my
experience going from Iraq to Syria: The sense of fear left me as I
departed Saddam Hussein's penitentiary state and entered a merely
repressive dictatorship, where the worst thing that befell me was that
news sources did not return my phone calls. More recently, when I
crossed from the enfeebled democracy of Georgia to a province of
southern Russia, overseen by the quasi-autocratic Vladimir Putin, the
thuggery of the police suddenly intensified.
Borders may be eroding and stateless terrorist groups like al-Qaeda
proliferating, but don't be fooled: The traditional state remains the
most dangerous force on the international scene. Perhaps the greatest
security threat we face today is from a paranoid and resentful state
leader, armed with biological or nuclear weapons and willing to make
strategic use of stateless terrorists.
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