Never Ending Nation Builders

Prime Minister Gordon Brown testified that he supported and still supports the war in Iraq, but only wished it had an exit strategy or a reconstruction strategy that actually gained the favor of the Iraqi people. Although a step forward from what the neoconservatives of the past decade vehemently supported in the U.S., Mr. Brown's justification for the war from the start was declaring that Iraq was a threat that "had to be dealt with." At this rate, the United States and its singular Western ally can call anything a "threat" and "deal with it."

Threats do not necessarily need a massive invasion or quasi- military occupation. If Saddam Hussein was a threat and his people were not, couldn't a simple Delta Force operation "deal" with him? Can't a Delta Force, Navy Seal, or Spec. Ops. team deal with any terrorist cell better than a standing army can, twiddling its thumbs in open desert, angering the indigenous population? Mr. Brown was right -- there was no exit strategy; however, there was no real strategy to begin with and what Gordon Brown fails to admit is that there was no overall strategy because the war in Iraq was essentially an expansion of the American empire, adding just another one of our global military bases to the collection of over 700 that we have right now.

There was no strategy or exit strategy because, I fear, the plan was to simply dump American troops in another location and leave them there as a showcase of American hard power. 

Just a Question or Two...

On Tuesday night I paid a visit to 1333 H Street here in Washington, DC for what I thought would be an interesting debate over reconstruction issues in Iraq, an event held by the National Security Network.

Inspector General Stuart Bowen was present and delivered an interesting opening statement laying out his plans for fixing bureaucracy and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spoke proudly of the $53 Billion (of our tax dollars) that is being spent on reconstruction and the efforts the United States puts in “protecting its interests abroad.”

Why does the United States need interests abroad? It seems as if Mr. Bowen, a residue of the Bush Administration, is only promulgating a message of perpetual war, especially when he laid out his plans for reconstruction. 

How to Solve the Middle East "Problem"

“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.” – Adolf Hitler

For the United States, the Middle East has become a hotbed of misconstrued politics and regional power struggles that have created an undesired status quo in contemporary foreign affairs. The quagmire that we (the United States) have gotten ourselves into is not new, nor does it require a new theory on foreign policy to solve. What neoconservatives and many think tanks such as the Project for a New American Century have established was the continuation of an old, failed policy of interventionism and spreading "democracy."   But American foreign policy must find its way out of entangling alliances and back to an era of peace and prosperity.

 “We make war that we may live in peace.” – Aristotle

A Roundup of Liberty-Related Stuff

Here's a collection of information (on the TSA, Iraq, Jon Stewart, Barry Goldwater, and Ron Paul) I've been accumulating over the last few days which you  might find interesting:

• An eight-year-old on the no-fly list?  Well, technically no, but his name is -- he shares it with a suspicious person.  As a result, Mikey Hicks of New Jersey has been getting "random" pat downs at the airport since he was two.  Because clearly we couldn't involve common sense and let the kid get on a plane without a hassle (eye roll).
• "Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?"  Well, for a lot of reasons, apparently.  Here's just a taste:
  
  Q:Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
  A:Because they had weapons of mass destruction.
  Q:But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
  A:That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.
  ...
  Q:Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
  A:To use them in a war, silly.
  Q:I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
  A:Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.
• Here's a new video from Jon Stewart on the continued failure of the economy and new Wall Street bonuses.