North Korea and Washington’s Farewell Address

"The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest." - George Washington, "Farewell Address" The U.S. Senate has one of its members read this every year. Do most of them stay away or sleep through it?

Posted to http://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/opinion/north-korea-nuclear-program-trump.html?comments#permid=23130284.

I live in the best house in the world

Originally published in the Reader Weekly 2004-06-03.

I live in the best house in the world.  What?  You think your house is better?  Your house has a warm basement; your house is bigger; your house is on a lake?  Oh well, my house is my house, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best neighborhood in the world.  What?  You think your neighborhood is better?  Your neighborhood has block parties every season; your neighborhood has no thoroughfares running through it; and your neighborhood has a convenience store two blocks from your house? Oh well, my neighborhood is my neighborhood, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best city in the world.  What?  You think your city is better?  Your city has more frequent bus service; your city has fewer potholes; and your city has a warmer climate?  John Lescroat, detective fiction writer, thinks that “San Francisco [is] the best city in the world”  (The Mercy Rule).  Oh well, Duluth is my city, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best state in the world.  What?  You think your state is better?  Your state has mountains or is on the ocean; your state has a lower crime rate and a better education system; and your state has lower taxes? Oh well, Minnesota is my state, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best country in the world.  What?  You think your country is better?  Your country has a better transportation system; your country has free health care for everyone; and your country has less pollution. The Swedish National Anthem exclaims “I will live and die in the North.”  Sounds like many Swedes think Sweden is the best country.  Or Bedrich Smetana wrote “Ma Vlast (My Country)” about Bohemia, now the core province of the Czech Republic.  Oh well, the United States is my country, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

Why is it that so many people have to have the “best” whether it is a car or a country?  The Ford-Chevy divide is one of the most ridiculous of the “best” arguments.  Why is it that some Ford owners have to put down Chevy owners or vice versa?  Can’t they accept that people make choices for a wide variety of reasons, both logical and illogical?  I have owned one Chevy (my first car) and five Fords.  I can’t tell you why I never bought another Chevy or another GM car or never even considered them.  I have rented GM cars many times and they have performed satisfactorily.  But to purchase Ford has been my choice and I shouldn’t feel a need to put down Chevy’s or their owners.

Sports teams are another “best” that so many get caught up in.  The emotional involvement that some people have can be destructive, both personally and socially.  They feel like the world has come to an end if their team loses, and a few of these feel like they have to go on a rampage.  I know, I got all excited when the Twins were in the Series in 1987.  But I cheered some of the Cardinal players, and I felt sorry for them when they left the field as “losers”.  But hey, they won the National League playoffs and for the most part played quite well.  The 1987 World Series did not make Minnesota a better state than Missouri.

Countries are the “worst” of the “best” attachments.  Not so much that it is wrong to take pride in one’s country, but that the idea that one’s country is “best” can lead to exclusion of other ideas, bad foreign policy, and even war.

One exclusion of other ideas that I’ve always marveled at was that the “best” medical system in the world did not have many computerized patient records until recently, except financial records.  When I worked for Univac in Sweden in the early ‘70s, Univac had a special group that worked with hospitals; this group helped European and South African hospitals implement systems that kept track of patients’ medical records.  My colleagues in that group joked that the only thing that American hospitals kept track of on computers was how much the patients owed them.

Many think that the U.S. is the bastion of freedom and therefore knows “best” how to export it to other countries. "We need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts -- a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy -- by force if necessary.... Liberty cannot be laid down like so much Astroturf."   - Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kans., quoted by George Will, Duluth News Tribune, May 30, 2004.

Let us remember that Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss was wrong, this is not the best of all possible worlds (or countries or cities or neighborhoods or houses).  But let us make the best of what we have and work to make it better.

Foreign policy foreign to Founders

What would George Washington think of the foreign relations of our Presidents for the last 100 years?  Or even two hundred years?

Consider what George Washington wrote in his “Farewell Address”:

“Hence likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”

Poor George probably spun in his grave when Madeleine Albright said, “What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?”

“…the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party … opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

How often does the influence of Israel hamper U.S. policy in the Middle East?  Sometimes the Democrats and Republicans both work overtime to show how great their support of Israel is.

“Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.”

Japan and Vietnam have forgiven the U.S. for the damage done to them.  I wonder when the U.S. will get around to forgiving Cuba and Iran for the minor damage done to it.

“The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”

I wonder if George Washington would appreciate being called “the leader of the free world”?

“Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?”

George Washington really would really disapprove of the hundreds of U.S. bases around the world.

“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world—so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it, for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements (I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy)—I repeat it therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectably defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”

Would George Washington approve of the U.S. staying in NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union?

“But if I may even flatter myself that [these counsels] may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good, that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism—this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated.”

Unfortunately, faction arose strongly shortly after Washington left office – Jefferson and Adams became strong political opponents.  Fortunately, they did become friends later in life.

Both Jefferson and Madison waged war on the Barbary Pirates who demanded tribute to not attack U.S. ships in the Mediterranean and ransom for captured sailors.  These were wars with limited objectives that ended with treaties favorable to the United States.

On the other hand Madison’s war with Great Britain was called just that by those opposed to it – “Mr. Madison’s War”.  The opposition was particularly strong in New England where many merchants continued to trade with Britain.

One of the first major expansions of U.S. influence was the Monroe Doctrine to curb any influence by European powers over the newly independent countries of Latin America.

“The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”

How often did the U.S. interfere with “the free and independent condition” of these countries?  George Washington’s “foreign intrigue” certainly was practiced in Latin America by many of his successors.

The very faction that Washington warned against, one section of the country against another, led to the Civil War.

And on and on it went, war after war.  Some required U.S. involvement; many didn’t.  Some of the latter were called “wars of choice” by critics.

Those who signed the Constitution and promoted it knew that circumstances and the Constitution would change, but would they approve of all the changes?

Oil companies, Fortune 500, and U.S foreign policy

Another of my old notes: Does the fact that four* out of the top ten companies in the Fortune 500 are oil companies have any effect on U.S foreign policy?

The note reads six companies, but with mergers and the rise of other companies, the fifth oil company is now rated 33 in the 2013 Fortune 500 list. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2013/full_list/

Who has more say on foreign policy?  The people of the United States or the largest companies, especially oil companies?  Do we have democratic capitalism or oligarchic capitalism?  See “Democratic capitalism, revisiting an oxymoron”.

Whither America? Idealism or Ideology?

The following was published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2013-11-14 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/11/14/2433_party_of_one_whither_america_idealism_or_ideology

Idealism is a set of goals; ideology is a set of rules.  Idealism is a guide to how you act; ideology is a set of rules on how you and everybody else must act.  Idealism takes into account reality; ideology creates its own “reality”.  “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”  This is attributed to Karl Rove or Dick Cheney.  They ignore to our detriment Newton's third law of motion:  "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."  If you create your own reality, then others will create their own reality.  Overwhelming force meets roadside bomb.

The Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice had two recent speakers who addressed these issues.  Robert J. Art, author of “A Grand Strategy for America”, cautiously leaned toward ideology.  Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism” and “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War”, is fed up with the “Imperial Presidency” and the “Wise Men” who are getting us deeper and deeper into problems,  thus creating even more problems.

Art states that we must strike a balance between isolationism and being the world’s policeman. Isolationism often means withdrawing from most of the world’s affairs.  This is rather difficult given how intertwined the world economy has become.  We have already seen how often being the world’s policeman causes more problems than it solves.

Art says we have six important interests:

1) Protect the homeland and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction
2) Keep deep peace among Eurasian great powers
3) Assure assets (oil) for market
4) International economic openness
5) Democracy’s spread and observance of human rights
6) Avert severe climate change

To support these interests, Art gives eight grand strategies, including dominion, isolationism, and selective engagement.  Dominion just won’t work; it will get us into deeper and deeper military involvement.  The U.S. has tried it on various scales for over a century, and our politicians still haven’t learned.  Isolationism has many aspects, but if the U.S. isolates itself from the rest of the world, will the rest of the world help if the U.S. needs help?

Art prefers selective engagement.  Selective engagement is based on fundamental goals, it concentrates on those “regions of most consequence to the United States”, “it maintains a forward-based defense posture”, “it prescribes a set of judicious rules for when to wage wars”, and “it calls for American leadership.”

But the devil is in the details.  It seems to me that this selective engagement has been going on for decades.  President after president, Republican or Democrat, has had a set of fundamental goals, has thought that region after region was consequential, has had “defensive” forces all over the world, has thought his rules for war were correct, and of course, has insisted on being first among “equals”.

In both “The Limits of Power” and “Washington Rules”, Bacevich examines the consequences of strategies like Art proposes.  We have moved to an imperial presidency where the President not only does his best to ignore Congress in “power projection” but ignores the military and diplomatic departments and huddles with his “Wise Men”.  Kennedy did it in the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Bush did it with Afghanistan and Iraq.  Obama is doing it with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  And often the President doesn’t understand that he, the unelected “leader of the free world” is being manipulated by his “Wise Men”–McNamara, Cheney, and so on.  Bacevich writes about Kennedy’s team, "With the certainty of men unacquainted with the actual use of power, they did not doubt their ability to compel war to do their bidding."  This could apply to just about every inner circle since.
Bacevich sees U.S. leaders having a credo backed up by a “sacred trinity”.

Credo: “The United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.”

Sacred trinity: "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism”.

Bacevich suggests an alternate credo: “America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as reinterpreted with the passage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.”

He proposes a new trinity:

“First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.”

“Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America.”

“Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense.”

Bacevich quotes Reinhold Niebuhr frequently:
“[H]e warned that what he called ‘our dreams of managing history’–born of a peculiar combination of arrogance and narcissism–posed a potentially mortal threat to the United States.”  “The Irony of American History”, 1952

Niebuhr predates Pete Seeger who said it more simply, “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”

Gas attack or missile attack: who suffers?

I sent the following webmail to Pres. Obama:

To paraphrase your words: “At what point do we say we need to confront actions that are violating our Constitution?”  “I would argue that when I see 400 children subjected to missiles, over 1,400 innocent civilians dying senselessly … the moral thing to do is not to stand by and do nothing.”


What guarantee do you have that each cruise missile will hit a military target?  What guarantee do you have that each military target will be occupied by those responsible for the gas attack?  Do you know how many civilian workers might be in each target?


A Tomahawk missile has a supposed accuracy of 10 meters.  Many streets in Damascus are less than 10 meters wide.  Will every military target be more than 10 meters from an apartment building?  How far will the debris from a missile explosion go?  How many missile explosions will bring neighboring apartments down?


Assume one apartment building has six floors, each floor has four apartments, each apartment has five residents.  That's 120 residents in a single apartment building.  Do you have any count of how many apartment buildings will be brought down by any misses or near misses or "non-misses"?


If the lethal blast range is 28 meters, then eight neighboring buildings could be brought down. That could mean over 900 residents could be killed by one Tomahawk missile.


If you send ten Tomahawks that could mean over 5,000 Syrians will die for your "message" to Assad.  That is a rather high-price for a message for the deaths of 300 or 1400 people.


Oh, by the way, have you considered the repercussions if any missile damages a mosque?


And if the gas attack was perpetrated by Islamic radicals, you really will have been suckered!

Syria: Popular opinion vs. political opinion

The comments on New York Times articles about Obama's proposal tend to be against any military action with some support for military action.  Apparently popular opinion throughout the country is against any military action.  Apparently the political leadership in Congress seems to be for military action.

Fortunately, some congresspeople are not following the political crowd.  See "Following Classified Briefings, Nolan Will 'Vote and Work Against' U.S. Attack on Syria", Rep. Rick Nolan, 2013-09-03
http://nolan.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/following-classified-briefings-nolan-will-vote-and-work-against-us

I added my own little comment to "House Leaders Express Their Support for Syria Strike", Mark Landler, Michael R. Gordon, and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 2013-09-03:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
"[O]nly the dead have seen the end of war."
– George Santayana

No matter what your opinion, be sure to send email to the President, your Representative, and both of your Senators.  They might not read your email, but rest assured their staffs are putting them in pro and con "piles".

Oh, yeah!  Remember that little incident in Sarajevo?  How many millions died because of all the miscalculations?

Syria: world of laws or a world of men?

Letter to WhiteHouse.gov

John Adams put into the Massachusetts' Constitution of 1780 "a government of laws and not of men".

In 1945 the United States was a promoter and signatory of the United Nations Charter, which includes "to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace".  That is, a world of laws and not of men.

Too many times during my lifetime, almost every U.S. President from Harry Truman to George W. Bush have taken unilateral action against another government who they claimed was a threat to the peace.  Now a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has been beating the war drums to take unilateral military action against another member of the United Nations.

What happened to "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

End of letter

Be sure to send your own view on Syria to the President, your senators, and your representative.  If you are a citizen of another country, be sure to send your own view to the members of your government.

Syria – A letter to the President of the United States

I posted the following on "Contact Us" at http://www.whitehouse.gov.

Before you were born, the Department of War became the Department of Defense.  Unfortunately, several times since the Department of Defense has become the Department of Offense with disastrous results for troops, our citizens, the economy, and other countries' views towards us.

If we are truly to have a Department of Defense, what is the threat that dictators like Assad pose towards the U.S.?  Is he going to invade us?  If we invade Syria you can rest assured that action will breed terrorists who will invade us.

If Assad is a threat to the region, don't Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have enough U.S. equipment to take on Assad?

If the U.S. sticks its nose into Syria, it will only give these countries cover to not take action themselves, leaving us as the fall guy when things go badly.

Whatever happened to foreign students and foreign languages?

I wrote the above title and the text below in response to "On campus beat: University of Minnesota and EMC team up to teach world languages", Lydia Coutré, Star Tribune, 2013-06-25.  http://www.startribune.com/local/212860091.html  I submitted it as a letter to the editor, but the Strib did not publish it.  Apropos foreign languages, the Strib put the accent mark on Coutré's name.

When I was in college students coming from another country were foreign students.  They were welcomed by many and considered part of the student body.  I remember eating often with three Arabs whose conversation went beyond their complaints about Israel.

Now their grandchildren studying in the U.S. would be called "international students".  But if a student body at a U.S. school included students from other countries, wouldn't all the students be international students?

When I worked and lived in Europe, I wasn't an international worker but a foreigner.  I was called Ausländer, utlänning, étranger, straniero, and various forms of American.  And gaijin (outside person) when I visited Japan.

When I was in school and beyond, languages other than English were called foreign languages; now it is the fashion to call these other languages world languages, no matter how widely they are spoken.  I would consider only a handful of languages world languages; English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese are spoken in a large number of countries.  Swedish and Japanese would be local languages, spoken almost exclusively on a daily basis only in their countries of origin.

No matter what you call other languages, Lydia Coutré is right to point out that Americans are woefully illiterate in foreign languages.  We need to stop considering foreign languages a frill.  Being multi-lingual gets you friends, business, and security.  I wonder if there would have been fewer terrorists if our schools could have provided more Arab speakers.

U.S. oligarchy, history repeats itself

"The Penguin democracy was not ruled by itself: it obeyed a financial oligarchy that put its opinions in the newspapers, and held in its hand the deputies, ministers and the president.  It was the final power in the finances of the republic and directed the foreign policy of the country."

Anatole France, L'Ile des Pingouines (The Isle of Penguins), 1908
My translation based on Google Translate

"La démocratie pingouine ne se gouvernait point par elle-même; elle obéissait à une oligarchie financière qui faisait l'opinion par les journaux, et tenait dans sa main les députés, les ministres et le président. Elle ordonnait souverainement des finances de la république et dirigeait la politique extérieure du pays."

Or as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849:
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_%C3%A7a_change,_plus_c%27est_la_m%C3%AAme_chose

Quote of the day - Diplomatic Imperialism

Remember when George W. Bush said that you're with us or against us?

Fareed Zakaria wrote "Washington ... has not yet figured out that diplomatic imperialism is a luxury that the United States can no longer afford."
- The Post-American World, Release 2.0, pp. 258-259

He concludes his book with the idea that we are an open, welcoming country but that our foreign policy is narrow-minded and paranoid.

Many are calling for Congress to compromise on many issues.  Maybe we should be asking Congress and the Administration to compromise with the rest of the world.

"The Post-American World" is a very good read.  Zakaria lays out all the pitfalls of assuming that economic and military might can mislead a country into thinking its "On top of the world and outside history".  On the other hand, Zakaria thinks that as the first "universal nation" (people of many origins and faiths) has a lot of strengths that can be harnessed to bring about a more prosperous, peaceful, multi-polar world.

Quote of the day: sex is more sinful than killing

"The real scandal is that we're scandalized by sexual escapades, not by the license to kill given to the CIA's drone program." - a paraphrase inserted in bold in "Real spies don't behave like Bond. Or do they?", David Rothkopf, Star Tribune, 2012-11-14, originally published in Foreign Policy as "Shaken, Not Stirred by CIA 'Values'", 2012-11-12.

I just find it amazing that we are willing to upset people's lives to suit our own purposes, whether it is with subpoenas to ransack houses of people we don't like or with drones to demolish houses of people we don't like.

Oil! Republican dependency on fantasy

Rep. Chip Cravaack, R-MN8, claims to be an independent voice for his constituents but he seems to be sticking to the ALEC and Koch brothers line.  ALEC is American Legislative Exchange Council that is an organization of big businesses to write laws in their interests rather than the public interest.

One is his recent republishing in his newsletter of his op-ed article in the Duluth News Tribune, "Reducing regulations, expanding U.S. drilling will lower gas prices".  He also republished it on his Congressional web site!  See http://cravaack.house.gov/in-the-news/reducing-regulations-expanding-us-drilling-will-lower-gas-prices/.  Hm, I'm supposed to give exclusive rights to the News Tribune for my submissions, and so I do not re-post my submissions on my blog.

Back to the subject.

As to be expected in election year, the opposition gets all the blame for any problems.  Cravaack blames Obama for high gas prices, but he ignores the high gas prices during Bush's terms.  In both cases, there are many more factors contributing to gas prices.

How about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Not only do these create uncertainty in energy markets, they add enormously to the demand for fuel.  Wouldn't it be grand if all those humvees, fighter jets, and drones could run on the hot air coming out of Congress?

How about the cost of drilling?  As the easily accessible oil is depleted, it cost lots more to get the remainder.  And these costs will go up as the oil becomes even less accessible.  Right now it costs $60 a barrel to extract gulf oil (see "Two dollars a gallon gasoline?  No way!").  But will world markets price oil only a little bit above that?  I doubt it.

Reducing regulations won't really change the price of oil; it might if Congress mandated that no oil could be imported or exported.  Do you think the large oil companies would go for that?  Right now, gasoline is being EXPORTED from the U.S.  Oil and gasoline are world commodities.  If somebody in India, say, is willing to pay $3.28 per gallon (today's NYMEX price, not including shipping) to import a tanker of gasoline, do you think any U.S. gasoline refiner is going to charge less in the United States?

Cravaack points out how the U.S. investment in Solyndra and Fisker automotive went sour.  How many energy investments have done well?  He is silent on oil depletion allowances and other tax breaks the oil industry gets.  He is silent on the huge investment in nuclear energy research made by the U.S. Government.  He is silent on the cost of nuclear waste, most of which will be borne by the U.S. Government.  He is silent on the loan guarantees that have gone to nuclear power plants.  He is silent on the huge cost in health and other externalities of burning fossil fuel.

He faults the secretary of energy, Steven Chu, when asked if his goal was to lower gas prices, he said, “No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil.”  Does Cravaack live in a bubble?  How many wars are we going to fight to ensure access to oil?  How much are we going to go into debt to finance these wars?  How many people are going to die for "lower gas prices"?  If we can reduce our dependency on oil faster than India or China can, we will be at a huge economic and foreign policy advantage.

Solidarity - an overused word?

When I lived in Sweden in the early 70s, I saw many a poster proclaiming "solidarity" with this group or that group.  Somehow it seemed to me that claiming "solidarity" without doing much more than making a poster or holding a meeting was an empty gesture.

With all the protests, rebellions, and revolutions going on now, especially in North Africa, many people are claiming "solidarity" with the people in North Africa.

I've thought that solidarity as a concept gained currency with the labor movement.  If the union voted for a strike, all members went on strike in solidarity, whichever way they voted.  If one union at a factory went on strike, other unions might go on strike in solidarity with the first.  It was a one for all and all for one attitude.

Now people in many countries go out on peaceful streets and hold up signs of "solidarity" with the people of North Africa.  Where was their "solidarity" when Western countries were kowtowing to these dictators for oil or for "national security"?

Well, better late than never.  These demonstrations do give some hope to those struggling against dictators.  Their struggles are not going unnoticed.

If you really want to show "solidarity", hop on a plane and help get supplies into Libya.  If you can only show "sympathy", attending a demonstration is helpful.  But even more help is to send a check to one of the many organizations that are actually doing something on the ground.  Choices include the International Committee for the Red Cross, Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) , and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

U.S and Iran need each other, to hell with the people

I found an interesting opinion on how the Arab and Muslim people are caught between a rock and a hard place.  Foreign policy of nations antagonistic to each other goes on without consideration of the affected people.  The author of "Green and Jasmine bleeding together", Hamid Dabashi, makes the point that Islamic Republic of Iran needs to demonize the U. S. to hold its power and that the U. S. needs the threat of Islamic terrorism to support autocratic "allies".  Both sides could care less about the people in the affected nations.

Letter on Egypt to President Obama

In November 2008 many voted for "Change".  As far as foreign policy goes, nothing has changed.  It is still the same old "national security" and "national interest" leading to greater insecurity and results contrary to our real national interests.

If you haven't already read Andrew Bacevich's "Washington Rules", please do so as soon as possible.

The U.S. is still propping up anti-democratic autocrats like Hosni Mubarak despite very strong dissatisfaction from a large number of people.  And U.S. diplomats are still supportive of him, buying his line that he is standing between stability and chaos.  Remember the Shah of Iran and his Savak.

Sent via webform at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Keeping up with events in Egypt

If you are a news freak who couldn't get enough news about Iran in 2009, your best source on Egypt is Al-Jazeera.  The English version on the web is at

http://english.aljazeera.net/

For the latest, check out the blogs.  There is also plenty of commentary from many sources and perspectives.  One I found particular interesting is "The triviality of US Mideast policy" by Robert Grenier, a former director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center.  He relates how the headmaster of his school was unknowingly made irrelevant by an anti-Vietnam War protest.    Similarly, events have made most of U.S. Mideast policy irrelevant and outdated.

P.S. Cairo time is 8 hours ahead of Central Standard Time.

TSA is wrong target, but the only one we can reach

A major boycott may be forming against the full-body scanners of the Transportation Security Agency.  See "Viral 'pornoscan' protest challenges TSA" and http://wewontfly.com/.

However, the TSA is only a product of decades of foreign policy failures.  The United States has been meddling in other countries affairs at a level and a time span that we would not tolerate if other countries did the same to us.  Our chickens have come home to roost.

Andrew Bacevich has been warning about our military/intelligence failures for some time, but despite the volume and popularity of his writing, he doesn't seem to be making much progress bringing about reform.  See his "The Limits of Power, The End of American Exceptionalism" and "Washington Rules, America's Path to Permanent War", and many of his magazine articles.

Maybe a boycott of air travel could bring about a major change in foreign policy.  It may seem like a win for the terrorists, but they keep winning in small ways all the time.  The burden on passengers of airport security is a big win for terrorists; they have disrupted our economy and our sense of well-being.  How long will we have to put up with terrorists before governments figure out how to permanently neutralize them without violence that creates more terrorists.

Foreign troops can't fight "insurgencies"

King George hired Hessian soldiers to fight the "rebellion" of the colonists. They were resented more than British soldiers, who also were considered "foreign" troops by the colonists.

Napoleon III wanted to install his own king in Mexico, but many Mexicans had different ideas. Napoleon III sent an army that hadn't been defeated in 50 years. It was routed by a much smaller Mexican army on May 5, 1862 (Cinco de Mayo). The Mexican Army was not exactly an insurgency in the hit and run fashion we normally think of, but it was fighting a foreign enemy. There is more to this story; see "Cinco History".

The German Army overran France in World War II and ran into another "insurgency". It may have killed many members of the French Resistance, but they were always replaced by others. See "Occupation Déja Vu". See also some of the articles in the side bar of "Occupation Déja Vu".

The Russian Army has its Chechnya; the Chinese have Tibet and Xinjiang. Only the Chinese may succeed in that they have the resources for the "Powell Doctrine" (overwhelming force). And like the U.S. against the Indians, a population ready to move in and displace the prior inhabitants.

The United States is just not ready to fight insurgencies, no matter how hard the members of the armed forces try militarily. They don't speak the local language, they don't understand the local customs, the local national government is corrupt and inept, the American people are unwilling to pay the taxes to provide ALL the tools needed, and no matter how little the purported enemies of the U.S. are supported locally, the people like the foreigners even less. And I wonder if we will ever learn.