Gotterdamerung 3
At Asia Times, Ramzy Baroud evaluates the cost of over a decade of the Wars of George the Worst.
He is not optimistic for the fortunes of the United States as arbiter of world affairs. Two snippets (emphasis added).
(snip)
The US has truly lost the initiative, in the Middle East region and beyond it. The neo-cons’ drunkenness with military power led to costly wars that have overwhelmed the empire beyond salvation. Now, US foreign-policy makers are mere diplomatic firefighters, from Palestine, to Syria to Ukraine. For the Americans, the last few years have been less a “reality check”, more the new reality itself.
Read it, and weep for the devastation wrought by the wars of the Mongers of War.
April 8, 2014 at 11:46 am
Two reasons the US won’t fight a war with China. It would be a disaster for both economies that would ripple out to the world. Two, it wouldn’t be Bombing Paupers ™. The generals would certainly get their hair mussed and that they can’t face because they’re not good enough. Our military leaders are no longer people of substance, they’re corporate managers of assets. There’s a third — it would take a Republican president to start one and they’re more likely to pass one through the eye of a needle than get one into the White House any time soon. Other than that, agree with all of it. Libya, that went well. And, hey, Egypt was freed by an employee from Google and a Facebook page.
April 8, 2014 at 10:00 pm
And China is hardly an enemy, not any more. Hell, Walmart is their economy.
I think it can be argued that, in any real sense (as opposed to a rhetorical sense), they never were. Mao, as vile as he became in later life, mostly just wanted China to be left alone. I suspect that, to a much lesser degree, that was also the case with Soviets. They did not so much want to conquer the West as to be buffered from it, despite their Marxist rhetoric. Given the West’s and, especially America’s, insatiable thirst for enemies, they realized that the best defense was a good offense, and beggared their economy as a result.
Note that I am not arguing that either the USSR or Red China were beacons of peaceableness. I am arguing that, to a large extent, their bellicosity was in reaction to our own. Despite its self-image, America is not and has never been a peaceable kingdom. Just ask the Indians.
April 9, 2014 at 1:57 pm
Another reason, no war: California. Those who imagine a war with China, probably, don’t get out much or understand who helped build the state and its demographic picture.