Moreover, you ignore the the actual war she was more famous for and had a bigger role in, "Madeleine's War" (https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/05/10/albright...). This involved her advocating (successfully) to bomb Serbia, a nation of nominally white Christian people she argued were committing genocide against a Muslim (also white) population. This was also against the UN charter due to Russian and Chinese veto. This war, more so than the Iraq war, has much more relevance in discussing her legacy today given the invasion of Ukraine but you appear to ignore it intentionally or are perhaps unaware of it entirely.

I'm not arguing that racism isn't important in understanding the Iraq war (or other wars), but it is one factor among many. Some of the most brutal wars are actually between groups of people that to outsiders appear to be be very similar (Ukraine/Russia, Serb/Croat, various civil wars, etc...)

"But that's not what's happening across the Western democracies."

Western democracies do indeed have poor social reproduction, but I do NOT believe "Western" or democracy is the driving factor. If anything, your statement understates the issue because below replacement fertility rates are rapidly expanding and by no means restricted to the West or to democracies. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

There are ~ 90 countries where fertility is below replacement including disparate non-Western countries like UAE, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Lebanon, etc... including those that are not democratic.

Do you have any evidence that teachers are more likely to hold blank slate world-views? I've met very few people who believe this, and teachers don't seem any more likely to me to hold these views.

"notion that some students are smarter than others and that these discrepencies have consistent ethnic patterns fills them with a lot of rage due to their politics/religion."

Well, I do feel somewhat enraged reading these types of statements because it is wrong and harmful. I also say this as someone without a "blank slate world-view" (I've a background in genetics) and as a teacher.

You're statement is wrong because: 1) Race is a nebulous political construct not consistent over time and space 2) Observed racial differences are context dependent and also not consistent over time and space

You cite "Asians" as outperforming other groups (presumably in school in the West?) as one of your "consistent" ethnic patterns. But on closer inspection it is nothing but artifact of cherry-picking results that fit your hypothesis. Another time and place and you may get totally different results - and only one example is sufficient to prove your "consistent" hypothesis wrong. In fact, you pointed out yourself that performance has changed in the US and various European countries, undercutting your whole point on consistent racial differences! Probably if we go back to the period of European colonialism the difference is even more stark, but that is also cherry picking history... If we go back 3000 years, Europe is a poorly educated backwater relative to Egypt or the Middle East.

Group math educational attainment has far more to do with social context and history than "racial distribution of those students who are good at math". It's why relatively recent Asian immigration from say China for scientific and technical jobs is likely to produce kids who are good at math, but the same out-performance in not seen in say, Hmong refugees from Vietnam.

Also, AFAIK Asian kids don't currently outperform all other ethnic groups in the United States in educational attainment - I believe that honor now goes to Nigerian kids. Does that fit your world-view?

"Taiwan and China are under no such illusions. They are happy to identify smart students and give them challenging topics in order to help them achieve their potential, rather than trying to slow down the best students in order to pretend that everyone has the same talent for math. " Right, because teachers don't try to help students reach their potential and try to slow down great students?! Students can't skip grades, take AP classes or graduate college early?! A teacher giving everyone in the course the same math homework or test is pretending everyone has the same talent for math?!

Your gross-generalization is so poorly constructed it's hard for it to be wrong, never mind right. So I'll ask you a few questions instead.

How would you even begin to test your claim in a realistic way? What time period/s would you select? Even if it were true, would it matter? Would efforts to solve these problems best be dealt with government policy/funding/enforcement or by pushing "Asian culture" in Europe or Africa?

Do you really mean East Asia? Does Bangkok, New Delhi and Manila count as Asian? Does a skyscraper in the Philippines surrounded by gangs, illegal trade and graffiti not count if it is made of garbage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Mountain)? What if it was closed and re-opened elsewhere, does that mean the culture changed twice?

Is your generalization "significant" in understanding why Tokyo is cleaner than New Delhi or Bangkok or why Toronto has fewer youth gangs than New York? Was their "respect" for "the commons" in Singapore in 1964 when youth gangs and others engaged in race warfare? Or is it just more respect for the commons now that Singapore is no longer part of Malaysia?

How does a communal "respecting their commons" work when most people in a society think it is okay to conduct trade in ivory or whales, that are illegal under international law? What about dumping plastic in the ocean, where Asia in the main source? Or does the "commons" not count if it refers to the rest of the world? Perhaps how much money a society has to clean up pollution is more predictive than culture? Maybe individualism is useful when an entire society needs to change in some fashion and perhaps less useful when norms are reasonable?

Is there a chance that you are bothered by the problems you cite, but find it convenient to say "culture" because it allows you to wash your hands of these problems?

Lots of animals are not used for meat and dairy and are not extinct. Sure, numbers of cows would be massively reduced but that also frees up pasture. Pasture could be converted to habitat for wildlife and support a more diverse set of species.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't care if the number of cattle are reduced to a tiny fraction of the population they once were, if it means more biodiversity.