'Storm
Over
Mount Rushmore',
South Dakota,
USA, 1995.
{Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.}
Recently, Michael Barone wrote that the weakest part of American politics involves the selection of candidates for President/Vice President. Barone laments the lack foreign policy and military expertise in candidates. This assumes that the primary goal of American government is international politics and requires a military presence.
Going to war elsewhere is a well-known distraction from problems at home. The Romanovs, the last Russian family dynasty, went to war in what would become the soviet republics. In 1917, Russia fell to the Communists and became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Hungry, unemployed Russians fell under the influence of European Socialists and Communists while the last of the Romanov Tsars was off at war.
War has often been hypothesized to stimulate the American economy. Production of military weaponry, supplies, work for employed and unemployed men, traditionally, and domestic work for women while the men were off at war, sent money around the economy. The downside of WWI was the creation of the 'income tax', presented as only a temporary tax to pay for the war.
The costs of current wars is exorbitant: $1 million dollars for each of 136 'Tomahawk' missiles fired on only one day of the current Libyan 'no fly' military action. US military money definitely is moving, 'kinetic'.
Because of the enormous $14.3 Trillion dollar federal deficit, 93% of Gross National Product (GNP), it is vital to evaluate new expenditures. Perhaps new rules of engagement, beyond the older, simpler, 'it's ok to bomb if bombed', need to be developed before we are stuck in another 10-20 year conflict in yet another '3rd world', Muslim-occupied zone.
Libya is a particular problem because it is impossible to tell the 'white hats' from the 'black hats', the 'blue' from the 'grey', 'shirts vs. skins'. Television and Cable coverage reveals no one is in uniform, except Col. Moammar Khaddafy in that old brown tunic and floppy hat.
In recent coverage of a woman protester's removal from a Tripoli, Libya hotel, Khaddafy's Libyan army guards are guys wearing civilian clothes, grabbing a woman by linking her arm, forcing her into a black car. She could easily have been being abducted by a rival gang, given the innuendo and allegations involved.
This is a trend across the Middle East also. In Egypt, there were uniformed military driving tanks but Egyptian police took off their uniforms and mingled in the crowd of pro-democracy demonstrators. The same is true of videos throughout the region. Signs, placards, protesters with tattoos are on early videos. Then videotapes are full of people in civilian clothes rioting and running in the streets.
The lack of conventional warfare, lines of uniformed soldiers with muskets lining up to fight, make it hard to follow who is government supporter, who is rebel. Within the category of rebels: who is a true protester for democracy, who is a government police officer, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Qaida using the uprising against secular government to the advantage of Islamic religious extremists?
What should the US do when asked for support by foreign groups or Obama while demanding a foreign leader 'step down'? Perhaps the US, at least Congress and the Pentagon, should simply answer: we cannot go to war unless the rivals can take the time to find uniforms so we know who are our allies and who are our foes.
Four of the greatest of the American Presidents are engraved in stone at Mount Rushmore. George Washington, the founder of the nation, 1st President of the US (1789-1797), sacrificed his personal wealth to secure the independence of the original 13 colonies from Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson, Washington's Secretary of State, 3rd President of the US (1801-1809), the major author of 'The Declaration of Independence', left office before the onset of the War of 1812 against Great Britain. 'Rough Rider' Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the US (1901-1909), the most warlike of the four, said at the onset of the Spanish-American War, 'I should welcome almost any war, for I think the country needs one'. Abraham Lincoln, 16th President President of the US (1861-1865), was Commander-in-Chief during the Civil War and fought to Preserve the Union, arguably after sparking secession of a number of Southern states.
But the wars in North Africa and the Middle East are foreign wars fought in remote Muslim-occupied regions. These wars involve nations with long histories of dictatorships, some secular, many religious. And the people are from very different cultures, with different beliefs, who speak different languages, even eat different foods.
Fighting foreign wars may distract the American population. But this does not solve the problems at home. Domestic issues in the US, public and private debt, unemployment/underemployment, new hunger in 'new poor' from educated, previously working and middle classes, and cultures in conflict within the US, with over 13 million new immigrants, legal and illegal, overwhelm local, state, and federal domestic social welfare budgets.
Honesty, integrity, clear thinking, clear goals, and a real commitment to solving domestic problems in the US are required for US politicians, for the US to maintain a presence and represent democracy around the world.
Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through'21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.
Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Storm Over Mount Rushmore', South Dakota, USA, 1995, copyright mkrause381@gmail or mkrause54@yahoo.com.
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