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Many people agree with the simple statement that we should give the Afghan people the same effort that we gave the Iraqi people. Does that mean we should butt heads endlessly with the insurgency? That didn’t work in Iraq. Does it mean we should send another surge? That wasn’t the magic bullet either. Does it mean we should bring in another planeload of cash to pay off and arm local militias? That’s what did the trick in Iraq and that’s the only thing that’ll save Afghanistan from the Taliban.
Continue reading Unleashing Dostum’s Dogs
High expectations followed Obama’s election, but expectations were higher and felt by more people around the world when it came to foreign policy. The much lamented apologetic tour he embarked upon did restore lubrication to a seized up international mechanism, but Obama’s actual foreign policy gambits showed little tangible deviation from his predecessor’s. The unilateral swagger of the Bush era was easily reversed, but Obama’s scrapping of Bush’s missile defense plan is truly a step in the right direction. Russia has already reacted favorably by …
Continue reading Obama Foreign Policy Dawns as Neo-Con Sun Sets
What is commonly referred to as the political spectrum has devolved into a confusing twisted mass of ideas that people keep rearranging in favor of their own particular viewpoint. Let’s clean out and organize the ideological closet. Some items have been mislabeled and most of them misplaced.
Continue reading The Evolving Political Spectrum
Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to William Smith in 1787 regarding a rebellion led by a farmer named Shays. In dismissing the motives of the rebels as “founded in ignorance, not wickedness” he admits the “people cannot be all, & always well informed” and this must be remedied by setting “them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them.” Jefferson then shrugs off the deaths of a few rebels with this now famous quote. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.”
Continue reading Ignorant Blood Will Water the Tree of Liberty
One third of America is obese, but they never harm anyone except themselves, so it’s never been anyone’s business as far as social issues go. That’s changed. We now know that this third, that’s 70+ million obese Americans, affect our economic well being directly when they clog our health care system by spending 42% more than normal weight Americans. Obese people are eating America into the poor house.
Continue reading Two Thirds of America is Fat!
I’m sorry to have to say this, but the “birthers” need to be brought out into the spotlight. Why? The kind of people that laboriously maintain a radical conspiracy denying President Obama’s legitimacy will also contain your most dangerous nuts trying to prematurely end that presidency. Put it this way, I don’t have a problem stating that just about every violent racist/Neo-Nazi/KKK group is probably a loud and proud “birther” as well. Sure, there are some semi-intelligent racists that are using this propaganda for their cause, but that just makes this all the more insidious. Am I saying that all “birthers” are racists?
Continue reading Why Put the Birthers in the Spotlight?
I’m kind of surprised by how stupid the President acted last week. The statement he made regarding the arrest of his friend, Professor Gates, conflicted itself completely and was more appropriate for a private discussion in the oval office, after the press conference about health care was over. We know Obama didn’t want to distract everyone from his health care offensive, so he genuinely said something dumb at the worst possible time.
Continue reading Obama Spoke Stupidly
We’ve just elected a liberal president right after a conservative one reacted to an unprecedented terrorist attack on US soil by compromising some of our founding values. After these founding values were challenged by George W. Bush, we all expected the pendulum to swing back the other way when Obama was elected, but this hasn’t happened. Why?
Continue reading Enhanced Interrogation Blathering Covers Enhanced Information Gathering
We all hope that the people of Iran can rise up long enough to get a positive reaction from the government or even to follow through with another revolutionary sweep to power by a new generation, but a question persists. Are there really enough wealthy and middle class progressive Iranians to hold onto power in Iran? If you take the demographics of Iran’s electorate and their ideological leanings you can begin to see a familiar political playing field. Iran is a completely different political landscape from the United States, but during this era of social change and rapid cultural evolution, some of the same rules apply.
Continue reading Red Provinces vs. Blue Provinces … In Iran!
I was shocked when I heard about the verdict against the two journalist in North Korea. Twelve years hard labor sounds horrifying for these journalists and all should know that North Korea’s Gulag style prison system is well capable of endangering a prisoner’s life within months simply from the conditions alone (Although these two innocent women will hopefully receive better treatment, even though it’s only because they are westerners). Then you take a step back and realize they’re going to probably be all right because the Kim dynasty needs these two as bargaining chips in their growing confrontation with the entire world.
Continue reading What Does Guantanamo Bay Have to do with North Korea?
Liz Cheney recently got my attention on CNN. The arguments supporting or castigating Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last week have been bubbling up for a few days now and I’ve been satisfied to sit back and watch. It just didn’t seem that hard to figure out that he did the right thing here, but that’s not everyone’s opinion.
Continue reading Is Considering The Opinions of the Muslim World Wrong?
I found out something I didn’t know today. If you happened to walk around mainland China with a photograph of the Tiananmen Square “Tank Man”, something strange happens. You, know. That guy with balls too large to contemplate who stood in front of a column of Chinese tanks twenty years ago. Photograph below.
Continue reading Tiananmen Twenty Years later
Let me quickly clarify the meaning of “new world order”, which can mean several things depending on your level of sanity. I’m talking about the new economic order of the world that settled into place when the western world’s financial and real estate industries collapsed. You may have been hearing about countries like China, India and Brazil a lot more than usual lately and that’s because they have seats at a lot more tables now. This is a result of what’s being called “The Great Recession” and let’s just simplify things by saying that these countries have a lot more chips in front of them at the global poker table than the west does these days. Metaphors aside, China is still buying up dollars and most economists are praying that they continue to do so as the US gets back on it’s feet.
Continue reading Hope for the New World Order
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