Wednesday, March 23, 2011
And the winner is ...
Something short to vent my frustration over the number of idiots participating in online discussions or the comment threads for posted stories. CNN is a top information provider. I won't vouch for the quality of information they pump out but the organization itself is highly visible. The feedback discussions on their website are filled with an over abundance of liars, trolls, and outright idiots. For every intelligent and on topic comment there are 50 comments that get posted by people with an IQ of 50. The web is polluted with such missives but the ratio of good versus bad on the CNN site is overwhelming. End of rant.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Consequences of Hate...
Well it looks like all the years of US bashing are finally bearing fruit. 90% of the complaints directed toward the US have been unsubstantiated facts and out right propaganda. Lately it's been fashionable to claim that the US created and controlled the governments currently going through some difficulties. I call BS on this. During the cold war the US options basically came down to supporting anyone who was against the USSR. During the cold war the US was often blackmailed by those small country leaders who played the US and USSR against one another to gain US support. If the US couldn't oblige the USSR certainly would have provided the support.The US has always needed someone stable they could work with in country to country relations. It is the US governments responsibility to work on behalf of the US citizens to ensure and it's safety and prosperity . The well being of any other country has always been secondary. The US has been looking out for number 1 just like every other country on the planet looks after their own. The US prizes stability above all else. It is the citizens of a country who are most responsible for their circumtances. The countries currently in upheaval have always had the option of overthrowing their governments. Of course a lot of people will most certainly be killed but if the government is so bad sacrifices will need to be made. The citizens of any country greatly outnumber any governments military. With the easy availability of weapons those who want to rebel have the means. Iran used mass suicide charges using their citizens and even their children to fight off Iraq and it worked. Where their is the will there are always means.
However those who have been the loudest complainers are now castigating the US for not helping the rebel groups in Libya. Their rational for getting the US involved is to remove Libya's current government. They have proclaimed Qaddafi a vicious dictator who is killing the countries citizens. Now I have pretty much the same opinion Qaddafi but I see no reason the US needs to do anything. The same people calling for US intervention in Libya never seemed to be able to portray Saadam Hussien in the same light and called the US removal of him a "illegal war" and regime change was an unjust method. So this time around it looks like the US is going to heed their advice and this will guarantee the rebels will lose and Qaddafi will remain. This time the US was content on letting the UN work on the problem. It took the UN 3 weeks to make a decision and in that time Qaddafi's forces are defeating the rebels. The missile attacks and arial based attacks are now bombing military resources to slow down the defeat of the rebels. Tese actions are only going to slow down but not stop Qaddafi from putting down the rebels. There isn't a country in the world with the balls to actually send troops into the country to help the rebels defeat Qaddafi on the ground. Of course the US has demonstrated on more than one occasion that it has both the means and willingness to enter into such situations with any hope of success but have been castigated for years for our efforts. A lot of countries participating in the UN response didn't expect the US to defer to the UN and the Arab League and wait around until those groups made a decision. This is only a small example of what is going to happen in the future. The hate and lies constantly hurled against the US has started making US involvement in situations like this politically unsupportable by the US citizens. The absence or reduced presence of US power is not going to be kind to any who seek to improve their society. In fact the autocrats and dictatorial governments will become stronger and be harder to topple in the future.
However those who have been the loudest complainers are now castigating the US for not helping the rebel groups in Libya. Their rational for getting the US involved is to remove Libya's current government. They have proclaimed Qaddafi a vicious dictator who is killing the countries citizens. Now I have pretty much the same opinion Qaddafi but I see no reason the US needs to do anything. The same people calling for US intervention in Libya never seemed to be able to portray Saadam Hussien in the same light and called the US removal of him a "illegal war" and regime change was an unjust method. So this time around it looks like the US is going to heed their advice and this will guarantee the rebels will lose and Qaddafi will remain. This time the US was content on letting the UN work on the problem. It took the UN 3 weeks to make a decision and in that time Qaddafi's forces are defeating the rebels. The missile attacks and arial based attacks are now bombing military resources to slow down the defeat of the rebels. Tese actions are only going to slow down but not stop Qaddafi from putting down the rebels. There isn't a country in the world with the balls to actually send troops into the country to help the rebels defeat Qaddafi on the ground. Of course the US has demonstrated on more than one occasion that it has both the means and willingness to enter into such situations with any hope of success but have been castigated for years for our efforts. A lot of countries participating in the UN response didn't expect the US to defer to the UN and the Arab League and wait around until those groups made a decision. This is only a small example of what is going to happen in the future. The hate and lies constantly hurled against the US has started making US involvement in situations like this politically unsupportable by the US citizens. The absence or reduced presence of US power is not going to be kind to any who seek to improve their society. In fact the autocrats and dictatorial governments will become stronger and be harder to topple in the future.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
First Step...
One of the most popular critiques hurled against the US is that the country is an Empire or Imperial in nature. This argument is then used as the base fact to support a wide range of other complaints against the US. If the truth is to be attained we will first need to expose this nonsense before continuing on to addressing other concerns and complaints. However, by definition and characteristics the US is not and has never been an Empire.
Many people assume that America is already an empire by being the world's only superpower, by virtue of its military supremacy, economic power, global influence, technological prowess, and world-wide alliances. The US can reasonably described as a hegemony but that status was only achieved over a long time period with the cooperation of a whole lot of other countries and a lot of luck. It was mainly then world spanning wars of the 40's and 50's that enabled the US to rise above others in the global hierarchy.
The US political system is volatile. The presidential term limits alone create turnover after only 4 or 8 years and that is not enough time to apply an integrated and dominate foreign policy consistency. Every turnover of power presents a situation where those now in charge do not support all of the previous administrations policies. Even small changes can derail the countries foreign policy focus.
The Empire or Imperial descriptions are not correct. The US is often attacked because of it's military actions. The US is accused of warring for oil resources and in one sense they are. It is critical to the US as well as a whole lot of other countries that the oil continue to be distributed fairly across the globe. The US could have seized the oil resources in either Iraq or Kuwait by virtue of it's military strength but did not. Oil is sold at a market price that the producer countries can effect to their benefit thus allowing them to create great wealth for both the producer country and it's peoples but a lot of these governments never let any of that wealth to help it's impoverished people. These countries could be some of the most successful on the planet but the are not due to the type of rulers in that part of the world.
There have also been complaints about Western corporations stealing the oil. Most of the oil producing countries would still be barren if not foe these western countries who built the infrastructure needed to extract the oil in the first place. However, once everything was set up and running smoothly these countries "nationalized" all corporate assets with little or no compensation to those who lost their assets. If the oil producing countries are not careful they could find someone else willing to "Globalize" out the oil infrastructure from beneath them if the oil supply becomes unreliable due the the incompetence of the governments involved.
Many people assume that America is already an empire by being the world's only superpower, by virtue of its military supremacy, economic power, global influence, technological prowess, and world-wide alliances. The US can reasonably described as a hegemony but that status was only achieved over a long time period with the cooperation of a whole lot of other countries and a lot of luck. It was mainly then world spanning wars of the 40's and 50's that enabled the US to rise above others in the global hierarchy.
The US political system is volatile. The presidential term limits alone create turnover after only 4 or 8 years and that is not enough time to apply an integrated and dominate foreign policy consistency. Every turnover of power presents a situation where those now in charge do not support all of the previous administrations policies. Even small changes can derail the countries foreign policy focus.
The Empire or Imperial descriptions are not correct. The US is often attacked because of it's military actions. The US is accused of warring for oil resources and in one sense they are. It is critical to the US as well as a whole lot of other countries that the oil continue to be distributed fairly across the globe. The US could have seized the oil resources in either Iraq or Kuwait by virtue of it's military strength but did not. Oil is sold at a market price that the producer countries can effect to their benefit thus allowing them to create great wealth for both the producer country and it's peoples but a lot of these governments never let any of that wealth to help it's impoverished people. These countries could be some of the most successful on the planet but the are not due to the type of rulers in that part of the world.
There have also been complaints about Western corporations stealing the oil. Most of the oil producing countries would still be barren if not foe these western countries who built the infrastructure needed to extract the oil in the first place. However, once everything was set up and running smoothly these countries "nationalized" all corporate assets with little or no compensation to those who lost their assets. If the oil producing countries are not careful they could find someone else willing to "Globalize" out the oil infrastructure from beneath them if the oil supply becomes unreliable due the the incompetence of the governments involved.
Friday, March 11, 2011
It's Always Something....
It seems that a large number of people in the world believe the US is somehow on the verge of collapsing or losing it's mojo but is that really true? If take a good look at US history you can't help but note that the US has always been burdened with both actual and potential society wrecking issues. Just some of the examples are:
- The founding of the US started off with a Revolutionary War involving England, France, and Spain who were all striving to become imperialist powers at the time.
- The Declaration of Independence,Bill of Rights, and basic laws were created by the wealthy land owners at the time with very little if any input from the average citizen.
- The time period when the US was spreading across the land was filled with violence against any natives who happened to get in the way of progress.
- The US prosecuted and luckily survived a brutal civil war. Most people claim that slavery was the only issue but slavery was low on the list of differences. The Federal government at the time was weak and divided and those seeking wealth and power saw their chance to grab some. If the south had been victorious it would have opened the door to balkanization resulting in the present day US being divided into many countries.
- The disparity between the wealthy elite and the regular citizens was wider than it is today by a long shot.
- The US suffered through a paralyzing depression where over 1/3 of the country was unemployed.
- The US fought in WW1 and WW2 which bookended the depression.
- The US fought in the Korean war.
- The US fought a cold war for 30+ years.
- Severe racism was endemic in the US. From the founding of the country to modern times.
- The US fought in the Vietnam war.
- The US has had to deal with hostile middle eastern countries to secure oil supplies since the 1950's. Todays on-going hostility is nothing new.
- There were "Death to America" chants in the middle east going back to the 1950's.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
On-going Mayhem...
Well the revolutions in the middle east are proceeding as expected. Egyptians are challenging the military caretaker government to start addressing their original complaints such as releasing all political prisoners, releasing all the documentation detailing the former regime's actions, and schedule an orderly plan to replace the military caretakers and allow the citizens more control over who runs the country. As far as I can tell there has been little progress and thus the people are back on the streets.
Meanwhile in Libya the entrenched government is getting stronger by the day and there is a very good chance the existing regime will not collapse. Of course the international community is busy holding meetings and avoiding the question on what support should be given to those fighting the government. A couple more days of non-action will insure that the current government can finish their pogrom and resume control over the country.
In both of these conflicts the people pushing for change really have no idea what type of government they want to replace the old with. These seemingly spontaneous rebellions have all been about removing the current governments with little thought about how to create and organize a workable replacement government. The longer the opposition groups argue and fight amongst themselves the faster their countries will continue a descent into chaos. You just need to look at how Iraq has utterly failed to take advantage of having their former despised leadership eliminated and given a chance to start over. Make no mistake the US accomplished their military objectives in removing the former government. It was never the military responsibility to organize a replacement government. You would think with all of the suffering the Iraqis have dealt with would motivate some good faith efforts by their citizens in rebuilding their country but they are wasting their opportunity to do this. Same thing with Afghanistan. The Taliban government was shown the door and the Afghans have failed to take advantage of that. In Egypt the former government was kept in power with strong military support and now the military has managed to eliminate the middle man and take all the power for themselves. The Lybian opposition is comprised of different tribal groups that hate each other and fight amongst themselves which will guarantee that a common government never gets implemented. The whole country is on the verge of being "balkanized" and everyone knows how well that type of governing usually works.
More later...
Meanwhile in Libya the entrenched government is getting stronger by the day and there is a very good chance the existing regime will not collapse. Of course the international community is busy holding meetings and avoiding the question on what support should be given to those fighting the government. A couple more days of non-action will insure that the current government can finish their pogrom and resume control over the country.
In both of these conflicts the people pushing for change really have no idea what type of government they want to replace the old with. These seemingly spontaneous rebellions have all been about removing the current governments with little thought about how to create and organize a workable replacement government. The longer the opposition groups argue and fight amongst themselves the faster their countries will continue a descent into chaos. You just need to look at how Iraq has utterly failed to take advantage of having their former despised leadership eliminated and given a chance to start over. Make no mistake the US accomplished their military objectives in removing the former government. It was never the military responsibility to organize a replacement government. You would think with all of the suffering the Iraqis have dealt with would motivate some good faith efforts by their citizens in rebuilding their country but they are wasting their opportunity to do this. Same thing with Afghanistan. The Taliban government was shown the door and the Afghans have failed to take advantage of that. In Egypt the former government was kept in power with strong military support and now the military has managed to eliminate the middle man and take all the power for themselves. The Lybian opposition is comprised of different tribal groups that hate each other and fight amongst themselves which will guarantee that a common government never gets implemented. The whole country is on the verge of being "balkanized" and everyone knows how well that type of governing usually works.
More later...
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