INTERNATIONAL NEEDS AND POSITIONS
i think that obama's most pressing needs in the international field are fourfold:
1. stop, once and for all, the vendetta against cuba. drop all the sanctions, open the door all the way for not only american citizens to go to cuba but american companies to do business there and at the same time let the cuban people and companies come here. this little country, which should be our natural ally never did anything to us that was not predated by us doing something to them. (their only "crime" was to let the soviets put missiles on their land but that was in response to our quasi invasion at the bay of pigs) castro overthrew a mob connected fascist dictator and raised the living standards of his people. what is the crime in that?
2. get us out of iraq. for the umpteenth time i repeat, iraq did nothing to us. they were not involved in any shape, form or fashion in 9-11. hussian was the arch enemy of osama bin laden. they had no weapons of mass destruction. we murdered tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of iraqis and if there are any "terrorists" in iraq we created them.
3. for once, have an even handed approach to the Palestine problem. we cannot continue being the unequivocal supporter of isreal regardless of their positions. without a solution to the palestine problem, there will never be safety in the middle east for the usa or our citizens.
4. in Afghanistan, we must wage more a war of ideas and progress than just a war of violence and bombing. the taliban would not win any elections in Afghanistan, they were unpopular when they were in power but by using the same tactics that the soviets did in the 80's we are driving the population back to talibanism.
the list of empires and powerful countries who have fallen into the ash heap of history because of their meddling in foreign affairs while draining their national treasuries is very long; greece, rome, persia, babylonia, russia, england, france, spain etc etc etc etc. do we wish do add our name to the list? our founding fathers were totally against us getting involved in foriegn wars and disputes. "trade with all, ally with none." was their motto. (or j. adams' anyway)
what do i think about obama's choices? so far i would give him a B+. some are very good to excellent but some i question, especially emanual. but i do believe we must give him and them time. there are very tough times in front of us and hardly any of us will get through it unscathed so i do truly hope everyone in his circle is up to the task because the future of the nation now depends on these men and women.
oh well, off to play some poker and then tonight UNLV basketball game. go rebels!
peace to us all.
1. stop, once and for all, the vendetta against cuba. drop all the sanctions, open the door all the way for not only american citizens to go to cuba but american companies to do business there and at the same time let the cuban people and companies come here. this little country, which should be our natural ally never did anything to us that was not predated by us doing something to them. (their only "crime" was to let the soviets put missiles on their land but that was in response to our quasi invasion at the bay of pigs) castro overthrew a mob connected fascist dictator and raised the living standards of his people. what is the crime in that?
2. get us out of iraq. for the umpteenth time i repeat, iraq did nothing to us. they were not involved in any shape, form or fashion in 9-11. hussian was the arch enemy of osama bin laden. they had no weapons of mass destruction. we murdered tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of iraqis and if there are any "terrorists" in iraq we created them.
3. for once, have an even handed approach to the Palestine problem. we cannot continue being the unequivocal supporter of isreal regardless of their positions. without a solution to the palestine problem, there will never be safety in the middle east for the usa or our citizens.
4. in Afghanistan, we must wage more a war of ideas and progress than just a war of violence and bombing. the taliban would not win any elections in Afghanistan, they were unpopular when they were in power but by using the same tactics that the soviets did in the 80's we are driving the population back to talibanism.
the list of empires and powerful countries who have fallen into the ash heap of history because of their meddling in foreign affairs while draining their national treasuries is very long; greece, rome, persia, babylonia, russia, england, france, spain etc etc etc etc. do we wish do add our name to the list? our founding fathers were totally against us getting involved in foriegn wars and disputes. "trade with all, ally with none." was their motto. (or j. adams' anyway)
what do i think about obama's choices? so far i would give him a B+. some are very good to excellent but some i question, especially emanual. but i do believe we must give him and them time. there are very tough times in front of us and hardly any of us will get through it unscathed so i do truly hope everyone in his circle is up to the task because the future of the nation now depends on these men and women.
oh well, off to play some poker and then tonight UNLV basketball game. go rebels!
peace to us all.
posted by Ron Shock | 8:35 AM
7 Comments:
3. I think Israel is right more often than their opponents, but we should be willing to disagree with them when they aren't.
4. Legalize drugs in the US, and give a legal market for Afghan poppy farmers--More likely to put them on our side, and removes a source of Taliban funding.
We are doing the same thing with the Taliban that we did -- and are still doing -- in our approach to Iran.
There are a lot of progressive Iranian movements, possibly even the MAJORITY of people there, who in normal circumstances are willing and capable of overthrowing the government. But we are such a presence and such a policy issue that we become the uniter of Iranian people. To them, the US has become a common enemy against which to unite.
rooster, you are exactly right. our troops next door to them give the hardliners in iran a boogyman to exploit to justify their own policies of repression. with us gone, i believe iran would change its course radically.
every arab knows that if they attack isreal they will face certain annilation from us. therefore, they posture and use isreal and us as scapegoats but they are not really a threat, it is just arab politics.
of course, the iranians are not arabs but the politics remain the same.
sevesteen, we are not going legalize drugs in this country in our lifetime. we should. but we won't. way too practical for american politicans.
Does Obama, often described as lacking knowledge of foreign affairs, and praised (by all the wrong people) for reaching out to (all the wrong) “experienced” foreign policy wonks, really believe that he can succeed in Afghanistan where so many others have failed?
Here perhaps we find the audacity of sheer historical ignorance. The audacity of hope that “Yes, we can”---with a center-right Democratic administration, better than a far-right Republican administration---sufficiently stabilize Afghanistan to achieve the primary U.S. (imperialist) objectives in the region.
Obama seems to believe that the U.S. can defeat those resisting the foreign presence and its local allies, stabilize the thoroughly corrupt Northern Alliance warlord regime with Hamid Karzai as its symbolic head, and stem the flow of Taliban back and forth across the Pakistan border. Most importantly, it can finally get that oil pipeline done---the one that’s to run from the Caspian Sea through Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the Indian Ocean bypassing Russia and unfriendly Iran. The deal was signed in December 2002 but construction has been stymied by the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. That pipeline is, I believe, the big prize.
hopefully, obama (and the ruling elite) will come to their senses and get us the fuck out of afghanastan. over the years here on this blog, i have stressed that NO ONE, NO COUNTRY, NO EMPIRE, NO MILITARY has been able to control afghanastan after they invaded it. this is not a country as we think of "country" but a collection of tribes under the control of what can only be called a "war lord."
however, with that being said, in the 1970's there was a progressive government in afghanastan that had girls going to school, building roads and hospitals and doing other things that we should have been supporting. when russia came in and we then got involved covertly, the taliban was created and the situation got worse. that in mind, maybe the best thing we could do is leave afghans to afghans and hope for the best.
the pipeline you refer to is the the main goal of western imperialism.
obama has promised to get us out of iraq and i don't think he could have made the same promise for afghanastan and still get elected. we live in a militaristic country and that must be taken into account if you want to get elected to national office.
we shall see. obama can not be worse than bush. (i hope)
Rooster,
I think we became the enemy of Iran on August 19, 1953 when a CIA-engineered coup d’etat overthrew a popular, nationalist, and democratically ELECTED government headed by Dr. Mohammad Mosadeq, and replaced him with a pro-US/British dictator.
The Cuban embargo will never be lifted while all of those Cubans still live in Florida. They control too much political clout for anyone to go against them, and they won't have the embargo just "lifted". They want back all the things their families had taken from them by Castro, and no one can or will give it back to them.
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