Random Thoughts
Cracks in the Neo-Con Edifice
My sympathies are with the brave men and women of the American armed forces, who have dutifully and respectfully followed the orders of a retarded megalomaniac commander-in-chief and fought valiantly to achieve a quick and decisive victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not their job to police a violent Islamic culture and they are not trained for that purpose. The un-elected president is worried about the future electoral damage likely to ensue from these recurrent daily return of body bags filled with young Americans and fears the repeat of history of his father winning the war and losing the election. There is a morbid fear of Lyndon Johnson Vietnam syndrome, which made an incumbent president decide not to run for re-election.
The European ruling elite, who stood by the illegal war in opposition to their own citizens' wishes, those Pavlovianly conditioned to support America from the past experience of Soviet subjugation, and those whom the world domination philosophy of the Neo-cons alienated, are unwilling to send their troops to be sacrificial lambs on the altar of American foolishness. The alternative is to twist the arms of the brown children of lesser gods, like the bankrupt beggars of Pakistan and the servile and docile slaves of India, to serve as cannon fodder for grandiose American administration foreign policy, while proffering them the carrots of aid and preferential trade benefits and lucrative contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq. There is every likelihood that these beggars and slaves will fall in line, because they do not have any pride or self-respect and have a long history of subservience, in spite of their proclamations of sacrifice for stupid Islam or self-negating renunciation preaching Hinduism. It is highly unlikely that the change of color and religion of the dead soldiers will achieve any useful results, besides ensuring the re-election of the shrub. It will require American money to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq, which India and Pakistan cannot provide and as even Clinton confessed in his state of the union speech, now America has more will than wallet.
The world markets are beginning to deal more with Euros and the dollar is on the way to fading in the
sunset. It is the domestic exigencies of Japan and China, which prevent a collapse of the dollar. The
former cannot afford the loss of its export earnings without causing domestic earthquakes, so it continues to accumulate dollars by buying them in the market, so as not to devastate its domestic industry and the latter which is not such an ally, has similar needs and will one day use its accumulated reserve dollars as a weapon against us. No American administration wants to block the access of its citizens to cheap consumer goods and thus we continue to run huge trade, current account and budget deficits. No statesman is visible on the horizon to warn us of our disproportionately profligate use of the world's resources and our alienation of the Moslem energy producing countries' populations will come back to haunt us, as our past follies in Iran currently do. Our penchant for bombing from the skies and inability to appease on the ground will spawn Irans all the way from the Middle East to Central and South-East Asia. Ah well, perhaps I am a Cassandra and deserve the same fate of being ignored, but history repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then as a farce! My recommendation is to repeat an earlier suggestion, let us declare victory and pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq and reserve our inalienable right to bomb them to smithereens, which we are good at, if the scenario unfolds as threatening or contrary to our own interests.
06-Jul-2003
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Gaurang Bhatt, MD
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