Obama’s Policies are best but Afghanistan is tripping things up
BySeptember 19, 2009
The war is treated as a separate issue from health care, but anger and worry over the war deflates Obama’s momentum for health care reform.
With Obama, Americans are becoming more in a state of flux in our beliefs of what America’s place in the world should be. There have been two views of America’s place in the world: One view is that America has been a great hope for mankind, another view is that the US has been screwing things up ever since the British colonists first attacked the Indians and brought the first slave to these shores. Circumstance is involved: World War II, most think America was a savior; Iraq, most think we only made things worse. Some say America the land of the free and the brave spread the light of freedom, around the world, while others say Amerika the devil is robbing the world with its evil Imperialism. Some say Bush represented Amerika the Devil while Obama represents America the good. But one can’t hide from the fact that Obama’s and Bush’s Afghanistan policies are quite similar.
PS, The conclusion at the end of this article will be that discussing the issue of world government might help us solve local issues like health care reform.
What can anyone say to prevent Afghanistan from turning the Obama revolution into a Greek Tragedy? I would like to suggest that the US trying to preserve order gives a touch of justice in this world.
When Russia or China felt it was there duty to stand up to the most militant Muslims, in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and with China in Uyghur, they inadvertently succeeded in convincing Muslims that Russia or China considered Islam in general their enemy. Much more than Bush, who went to great lengths to convince Americans and Middle Easterners alike that moderates like the King of Jordan was the US’s friend.
In the past France also at times decided to be a vigilante or a self pointed police officer in Haiti and in Lebanon, leading among other things to some Americans boycotting French Fries. The current President of France has no intention of having France try to be in charge of solving any of the world’s problems. So the choice today is either the US, Russia or China trying to preserve a touch of order on the world. If the US gets out of Afghanistan in a hurry, the chances are that Muslims and China would be at each others throat far more than when Russia and Afghanistan were fighting.
There is another choice. World government and a world wide police force dealing with the most far out extremists rather than one country. A touch of this happened as the UN started fighting piracy.
Some fear that in a world government, India might unite with the African and Arab world and declare that women are subservient to men, or one be required to attend either Muslim, Catholic or another religious service, not including Unitarianism. These fears aren’t necessary just idle fears. However as the world situation now stands, the US withdrawing from trying to both run things and preserve a touch of justice would mean Russia or China trying to do so instead.
Al Qaeda has a clear plan to bait the US into bankrupting itself. Somehow their words to this effect hasn’t been given much coverage. When al Qaeda didn’t want Afghans to vote they attacked voting places and poll workers. In Iraq, bin Laden went on the Internet and demanded Iraqis not vote. They voted and many in the US decided that the war in Iraq was a war against bin Laden after all.
The US spends an incredible amount on smarter and smarter robot weapons like drone aircraft managing to cut down the US casualty rate, but al Qaeda kills on the cheap. A retarded child or a downs syndrome old lady equipped as a remote control suicide bomber might actually save them money in long term food costs vs the cost of the weapons they were carrying. The US must stop responding by spending ever more money on rapidly more costly arms, or else the US will become bankrupt.
There are al Qaeda dangers ahead such as the possibility they will seize or inherit Pakistani nukes. Of course Russia and China would do everything they could to prevent this if the US wasn’t in the central stage.
Whatever does or does not happen in the baby steps toward world government in the next few years, discussing the issues the way I did, will stop Americans from believing they have to decide whether US policy in Afghanistan is good or Satanic, and thus whether or not we can believe Obama knows what he is doing in the health care debate.
RichardKanePA.blogspot.com
RICHARDKANEpa
4 Responses to Obama’s Policies are best but Afghanistan is tripping things up
RichardKanePA
September 20, 2009 at 6:24 am
I wonder why no comments yet. However at FireDogLake there was an angry response by someone not wanting world government,
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8316
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8316#comment-76292
almandine
September 20, 2009 at 9:54 am
Hi Richard –
As you have noted, there are many opinions about America the Beautiful – or – America the Hegemonist, opinions it might seem that derive from the eye of the beholder. Then again, America the Omnipotent may be the cause of such diverse views… at least as far as moving and shaking the world since WWII. We are indeed all things to all people – one view at a time.
It may have a lot to do with our governing style – representative democracy – and the ability to use that style for good and bad, selfishness or support, freedom or slavery. We’ve done it all. I say we, because of our govt of, by, and for our people, even though we know we can identify forces and entities that have variously hijacked our governing process for their own advantage – in the name of America. Some of those forces already set the world stage.
Thus, to address your thesis one must ask, “what is it I would do for America? What would I have it be? What do I have to do to make it so? Finally, does it need to die in the name of World Government?”
You have identified forces and foes in the world that would seek to remake America in various ways, to impose views and behaviors on us that are anathema to the American way. Is that what you want? Do they not suffer from the same types of aberrant history that suggests equal or worse tendancies to hijack not only America, but whatever world resources – materials, animals, humans, the ecosystem – that could be used to advantage? Would their way be better than what we have sown, or would it only be different? Worse?
Would you trade the devil you know – and are – for the one(s) you see from afar?
Not I.
RichardKanePA
September 22, 2009 at 5:44 am
This is Richard, when I tried to edit a comment, it got repeated. Hopefully this will replace it since I don’t know how to remove it.
Richard Kane
RichardKanePA
September 21, 2009 at 8:22 pm
RichardKanePA on September 21, 2009 – 5:07am
Title: Almandine, I’m glad you
Almandine, I’m glad you mentioned many trying to manipulate US policy, while claiming that they represent the US, some working from abroad. We hear much about Israel as of late but during the Cold War emigres from Czechoslovakia, and Poland pushed the Cold War in hopes of liberating their country from Soviet influence, and now they are patriotic Americans incensed that the US didn’t extend the missile shield to their countries. And Cuban emigres won’t let Obama end the embargo of Cuba that is hurting the US economy under it’s present configuration more than Cuba. A senator from Cuban ancestry is a major part of Obama’s health care push.
However, people manipulate us through force as well. Bin Laden wanted US out of Sacred Saudi soil, and Bush removed troops from Saudi Arabia in 2003. Bush claims he stopped a second terror attack through force and the threat of force, but appeasement mixed with force was what really happened.
Now we face al Qaeda wondering when the time is right for another attack on the US when the US is tired enough that the results might end up with US troops getting out of Afghanistan, and the attack blamed on Obama.
People wanting to look at Bush representing Amerika the Imperialist and Obama the America the spreader of freedom and justice, yet with similar Afghan policy may all come apart with al Qaeda’s help. Some note that people like Cheney wanted to be fooled but this too adds the straight jacket the US is caught up in.
Besides hoping that something like a world government would get the US out of the hot seat, I also hope there is a future where local power is also very important. Though I am confused in this in that I want non-locals to insist that a woman raped not be stoned to death for adultery. I hope in the end we have a peaceful world without too much government controlling things, but too much control is not my biggest fear.
Of the subject, I am really disgusted with the bailouts, but since the world blamed the US for the economic meltdown. If Obama didn’t join the rest of the world in a economic bailouts the results would have been anger at the US for causing the mess, then anger at the US for not doing its share to bandage the economic world. We seem to be awfully close to being in a straight jacket. I don’t know why some people fear world government more than Armageddon type conditions like the starvation and chaos that followed the collapse of Ancient Rome.
RichardKanePA.blogspot.com