(via Parapundit)   First of all, major props to Parapundit / Randall Parker & Steve Sailer for being the first to break the story of Consanguinity (at least from where I stand;  later - GNXP).   The New York Times follows up on Parapundit / Sailer's scoop with this article describing the issue. 

..."Americans just don't understand what a different world Iraq is because of these highly unusual cousin marriages," said Robin Fox of Rutgers University, the author of "Kinship and Marriage," a widely used anthropology textbook. "Liberal democracy is based on the Western idea of autonomous individuals committed to a public good, but that's not how members of these tight and bounded kin groups see the world. Their world is divided into two groups: kin and strangers."

...Iraqis frequently describe nepotism not as a civic problem but as a moral duty.

The depth of the issue really hit home with this key quote - an Iraqi patriarch is describing what he thinks happened to the family that gave up Uday & Qusay to American troops for the promise of $30M in reward money and "Witness Protection" in a Western nation:

"Do you know why Saddam Hussein has not been captured?" asked Saleh, the oldest son of Sheik Yousif. "Because his own family will never turn him in, and no one else trusts the Americans to pay the reward." Saleh dismissed the reports that Americans had given $30 million and safe passage out of Iraq to the informant who turned in Mr. Hussein's sons.

"I assure you that never happened," Saleh said. "The American soldiers brought out a camera and gave him the money in front of a witness, and then they took him toward the Turkish border. Near the border they killed him and buried him in a valley. They wanted the money for their own families."

Amazing - this guy can't even conceive of an institution that acts with any integrity beyond the family and kin.   He finds it absurd to even consider that the individual American soldier is executing within the bounds of duty rather than constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to better his immediate family.  (And what a compliment to the unseen forces in the "Western world" that lead *us* to assume that the soldier did exactly what was expected of him!)

If Saleh can't even begin to expect that behavior from others, it's not hard to project what might happen if he were ever thrust into such an institutional leadership role himself.   Depressing.   To the core.  

Alas, there are many relativists out there who refuse to believe in the innate connection between economic / political success and culture.  To do so would be to actually credit Western civilization with some degree of success and, even worse, imply that the success was earned on the back of a culture rather than plundered from weaker and thus morally superior Peoples.