Here Is Something That Makes No Good Sense

The July 5, 2010 History Issue of Time Magazine has a series of articles about Thomas Edison as a way of treating the subject of Research and Development in the current American reality compared to the great days of invention (Edison's time). At a time in history when staying on top and ahead of the technological and science game pays huge divends for the national economy and, in many cases, for the overall global ability to confront modern problems, our nation is not keeping up with the Asian nations in terms of investment in R and D, and, more critically, we have our priorities absolutely wrong.

Here is what the Time article on the "Electrifying Edison" says about the current situation. We invest about 5 billion a year on energy R and D, $30 billion on medical R and D and $80 billion on military R and D. No wonder that we are spending ourselves into oblivion in order to pay for wars while the crucial question of producing the technology to the give the nation and the world safe, clean and renewable energy is goes untreated and we fall further behind others who have their priorities right. Just imagine if we had invested what has been spent on war in Iraq and Afghanistan on R and D that would lead to solar panels that make economic sense for electrifying homes, or on a national goal similar to the Califormia goal of 1/3 of our energy from safe, clean and renewable sources by 2020. With that kind of investment in new technology, the economy would be much better and the world just as safe...or safer since we would have no need to involve ourselves in unwinnable wars in order to please the energy companies which remain committed to oil.

the $30 billion for medical research seems reasonable except that it probably is going toward producing pharmecutics of the kind advertised on TV in these days where the message is to take a particular drug, despite the fact that it could kill you.

But, we need to reverse the $5 billion for Energy and the $80 billion for military R and D. And, despite the unholy phenomena of the Tea Party, we need the government to lead a massive investment in solar, wind and geothermal power for the nation. The benefits of this for us are tremendous, but also for the world. To the extent that such R and D leads to affordable solar, wind and geothermal, the poor would also benefit as electrification of the isolated areas of poverty as well as the blighted urban poverty areas would bring a host of benefits to people who have so much to struggle against and for, they don't need to spend hours a day trying to meet energy needs for mere survival.

Unfortunately there is no chance that we will do this and, thus, we will suffer the consequences. At a time when the nation cannot see pasts it's obession with migration issues and the Republican/Tea Party's fixation on the question of government spending, Rome continues to burn, i.e. we have no idea of how to stay on the top of our game when it comes to the most critical question for our future peace and prosperity - the rapid increase of production of energy from save, clean and renewable sources. Poor us...and it is literally true...as long as its 80 for the miliary and 5 for renewable energy, we only will get poorer and poorer in our economy and in our sustainability into the future.

It just does not make any sense to lose this opportunity for the future, unless, of course, our leaders really intend and really believe that to be the world leader in wars and arms sale makes either good economic or national security sense. In fact, it makes no good sense.

American Exceptionalism: Wrong, Stupid, Dangerous

I can't remember who the rightwing hit man was who suggested that President Obama didn't believe in "American Exceptionalism" although if my memory does not fail, it was a member of Congress which only shows that you don't have to have too many intellectual abilities or even love America to be elected to national office. The belief in "American Exceptionalis" is exactly what has damaged, diminished and nearly destroyed America's ability to both serve its own people according to its own internal values and America's ability to make an outstanding contribution to the health of the global community.

It is said by some that "American Exceptionalism (hereafter refered to as AE)" dates back to the evaluation made by Alexis de Toqueville that America was "exceptional". Okay, call the defense witness and see what he says. Alexis was on guy with one opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. He was not arguing as most of the proponents of AE, do that American was "above" others, "above" the law or "above" reproach as most of the supportes of this idea do. "Exceptional", were it to be true in some degree, even, really has no trustworthy, objective meaning as it is a judgement. If you googgle "Hotels" in Australia you will find several that are "exceptionsl" or are offering deals that are "exceptional" values. What does "exceptional" mean. In terms of this nation, it most often has meant that we have an excuse for immoral actions, international interventions, and for electing Republican and for starting wars which protect the military arms and oil industries.

There are things that are unique about this nation, some very good, some very bad and most in the middle; but, it could also be said that other nations are exceptional in their own niche areas of history, current reality, etc.

We could have made exceptional progress on health care and education during these past decades when the economy was booming and the national budget under control but, instead, decided we would either give the money back to the rich or spend it on wars that have won us nothing. the wars in Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq have been exceptionally wrong, stupid and dangerous to our national well-being, wasting untol trillions of resources and, more importantly, human lives, our own and those of others with the net result our nation is in debt, in a bad economy and totally polarized.

For these and other reasons, "American Exceptionalism" is wrong, stupid and dangerous. It is the dangerous part that is worrisome, because there are more than just one idea that has come forth from America that is both Wrong and Stupid; but few which hold the potential for damaging the nation and the world as much as "American Exceptionalism" has, is and will damage the nation and the world.

The primary point here is not whether Obama believes in "American Exceptionalis". I hope he doesn't, it would serve the nation well. There are many things to like about America, many blessings we have that others don't have (more top soil than most nations, for instance), but none of this makes us capable of or called to be the defender of democracy in the world, nor a power to impose our will on others; nor some "cit on a hill" as theologians have suggested. What it does mean is a special responsibility to take care of the amazing natural resouces we have and use them in a way that bring life to our nation and to other nations. In this sense of working with others we are not called either by God or our own history to be missionaries or colonialists for American democracy, American Freedom, American free-market theory, etc.

Right wing ideologues and Conservative, Patriotic Christians do no service to the nation by supporting the "belief" in "Amercian Exceptionalis". It is not true, it is not helpful and it is dangerous to our national health and any chance we might have to add to the overall goodness of the earth and other nations.

It would be better for us to believe in "American Humility" which would give us an attitude where what we have as natural and human resources, which is rather considerable, even extraordianty; would be used for those purposes that improve the quality of life for our people and for our brothers and sisters around the world. Human beings in general and nations, in particular, do not do well thinking of themselves as "exceptional". It normally leads to losing your way in life, hurting others and damaging yourself.

That being true, then belief in "American Exceptionalis" ought to be part of the litmus test for those who would pretend to serve as presideing. If you believe in it, you might be dangerous and if not, it could be that eventually you could be use for the nation.

This does not mean that we, as Americans, together as a nation or with other nations, do not need to apply our talents, energy and ideas for doing "exceptionally good" things for ourselves and the world. How about working together to see how we could all have solar or wind, or not polluting energy for our homes by 2020. That would be exceptional, but, evidently no one of any real power in the nation thinks that it is either plausible or possible (or, probably more to the point, don't see any self interest served by this project) What about making our schools and colleges extraorinarily exceptional in accepting students of all races and economic class and producing exceptional leaders for tomorrow. No, "exceptionalism" in invokled only when it comes to justifying war and keeping up the moral of the troops. We can do the latter by bringing them home, treat their war trauma, and see if we can be "exceptional" in our ability to fight terrorism and secure the peace without destroying so many homes, buildings and lives. That would be "exceptional", but the meere suggestion will be met with "exceptional" resistance because we all know that the real "exceptional " we seek is really an "exemption" from the suffering of others and from the laws that govern others such as human rights law.

What a sad day for America that it should be taken hostage for hte idol makers. In fact, that is what "American Exceptionalsm", an idol of proportion that masks our slavery under the cloak of patriotism. Too bad for us.

Obama, Right and Wrong

This blog is dedicated to the proposition that it makes a significant difference for human kind to get it right. What "right" means is something of a moving target, but it finds it home where a morality inspired by the values of freedom, equality, justice and peace meet the human reality created by governments, corporations and civil societies here and around the world.

President Obama's address to the nation this evening struck many "right" chords for the future of American foreign policy and was presented in a way that will make sense to many Americans. The decision he is obligated to make as President about a strategy to end the war in Afghanistan is one that was mandated by the mistakes of the past under the control of a foreign policy which did not get American or global interests "right".

President Obama is right that the war in Iraq was wrong and diverted valuable resources and caused a huge loss of life that was both unnecessary and not serving of U.S. nor global interests for security and peace. In fact, it created a world less secure and less peaceful, empowered other forces that could destabilize the whole nuclear weapon reality of our world and unleashed a series of consequences both here and around the world that still are causing problems for humankind.

President Obama is right to stake out the beginnings of a foreign policy that stresses the use of all the resources of this nation and its partners in the world to combat that which threatens not only our security, but the security of health network of common efforts by the global community to improve life on the planet. He is right to switch our approach to foreign policy to "right makes might", not "might makes right" as was the case in the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield days. He is right that the focus in Afghanistan/Pakistan should be on disarticulating Al Quaeda and not on nation building in Afghanistan and he is right to set a plan and timetable for exiting Afghanistan.

Obama is also right that Al Quaeda and their associates are not a threat to Pakistan. And the reason for this is that we were wrong to make war in Afghanistan as consequence of this to all who gave war a second threat, would be to push the terrorists into neighborhing states, the consequence of which is that they would eventually see that they had to extend the reach of their terror into that neighborhing state in order to build a buffer that would protect themselves, i.e. the one sure way to keep the Pakistani army out of Al Quaeda safe haven area is to make the other parts of the country unsafe and in need of Pakistani army protection.

Unfortunately, he is wrong on some important interpretation of history and analysis that may put his current efforts to resolve the war in Afghanistan in a way favorable to the fight to restrict the reach of terrorism in our world.

Let us begin with history and its interpretation. The war in Afghanistan was wrong. It was wrong despite the facts of the overwhelming support (not really for war but for all and every action needed to combat Al Quaeda) given both by the Congress as well as by NATO and UN. It was wrong because it misinterpreted the enemy. The enemy is not, as Bush tried to persuade us, the nations that give space to groups like Al Quaeda. The enemy that attacked us was Al Quaeda and, behind them, a huge well of discontent among a certain portion of the Muslim community around the world. We did not wait long enough or try hard enough or use every other weapon at our disposal to disarticulate Al Quaeda before supporting a war effort in Afghanistan. We gave the Taliban just a short time to response to our request for help and we did not put any prolonged pressure on them. We had the possibility of many military actions short of war to convince Taliban Afghanistan to help us root our and up the Al Quaeda network. For instance, as the Taliban had no Air Force and no Navy, we could have used these two resources from the Gulf and through flyovers to monitor and even attack key sites of Al Quaeda while we worked diplomatically to build a larger coalition of peaceful partners to convince Taliban/Afghanistan to help us with our goal of disarticulating Al Quaeda. Al Quaeda would have ened as a prisoner in Afghanistan, under constant air and navy attack without any ability to fight back. As it was, we tried to kill a fly with a sledge hammer and the fly got away to fight another day. The war was wrong as a strategy and as policy. You cannot defeat terrorism with war because war is a form of terror and spreads terror in reaction.

The arguement that some object to increasing troops because Afghanistan is like Vietnam is a paper tiger which can easily be destroyed, as President Obama did in his speech. But, the reason not to increase troops or use a "surge" in Afghanistan is not that it is Vietnam, but because it is Afghanistan: a nation that is not a nation, in the middle of a region that has no desire for it to be a nation of any strength with a geography that defies containment or destruction of any and all forces who have access to financing. The Taliban can close one enclave on Monday and open another on Tuesday as they recently have in the north and Al Quaeda has a million friens and more than a 1000 miles of sparsely populated, absolutely desolate and difficult terrain just on the Pakistan border with Afghanistan.

So, the overarching ideas of the Obama approach to foreign policy are good, helpful, to be applauded, but the strategy may not work in Afghanistan, because it is Afghanistan. It is our attack on the Taliban which has led to the tactical alliance between the Taliban and Al Quaeda, Al Quaeda being another weapon in the arsenal to fight the "allies". We should leave the Taliban to the Afghanis and just go after Al Quaeda which would force the Taliban to rethink their tactical alliance as one that might take away weapons instead of adding them to their aresenal. As clearly as President Obama has outlines his limited project in Afghanistan, the project is flawed because it is not narrow enough.

The President is right to say that whatever we do of efforts around the world, these efforts should not go beyond our responsibility, our means and our interests. Unforteunately it could be the case that the current strategy, to the extent that it depends upon the Afghans and Pakistanis taking their responsibility puts the end result of a "win" outside our means.

Seven years ago, President Bush declared the war in Afghanistan to be "mission accomplished". President Obabam, tonight, should have declared the war in Afghanistan "mission impossible" and announced a plan to withdraw, as soon as possible from the war in Afghanistan to concentrate our current level of forces or a smaller on a far less ambition and more central mission of disarticulating Al Quaeda. This goal can be accomplished no matter what future the Afghans decide for themselves.

What's In a Name

We should not spend much time debating the various aspects of the new book, Going Rogue, by Sarah Palin. I only want to say that Palin makes the point of all those who believe she was not and is not qualified to be a high level political leader in the nation by the very title of the book. Who is is that wants a Vice President or a President, or even a Governor or Senator to "go rogue"? There are about 6,465 better images than this for someone who was nominated by what was a major political party for the office of president. Enough said and we should forget the whole thing as a bad moment in the life of the nation.

Ft. Hood Violence is No Surprise

There is and will be a raging debate about what lies behind the killings at Ft. Hood. Putting all the specific theories which might turn out to be true, aside – a man who needed therapy, a man converted to radical Islamic Jihad, a man made desperate by both the stories he heard and his own orders to report to duty in Afghanistan – the larger picture is more simple and more scary.

If you train hundreds of thousands of men and women to kill, it is not surprising that they do not always kill who you trained them to kill. Some will kill themselves, some will kill innocent bystanders, some will kill others of their own army. Add to this that these men and women, trained to kill, are asked to fight in wars based on lies or wars without any end in sight, or wars that have no apparent reason for being fought and the odds go up. Add to this that the wars in which these men and women who are trained to killed fight are of the kind that accentuate the normal desentization, alienation, trauma and outright craziness that is necessary to fight a war and to kill other men and women and the odds get even higher that these men and women will kill themselves, innocent bystanders and even their own comrades in arms.
The question is where the madness lies: within these men and women or within the society that invites and pays them to be trained to kill for reasons they do not understand and in wars that, even within what is the craziness of war, are more intense, dangerous and cruel than ever before.
Here is my point. The person who pulls the trigger is responsible for the killings and that point should never be lost because "responsibility" is also the reason not to kill. But, we are also to blame. We pay for, permit and sometimes even encourage our nation to make killers out of these men and women and put them in situations where the violence we have sanctioned has neither moral direction or makes political sense. Eventually, we become the victims of our own sanctioning of the killing. This is another lesson we have not learned from previous wars, the most excrutiating example of which was Vietnam where the damage done to soldiers and, in consequence, to our own society was immense. Thousands of persons destroyed physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually whose illnesses of mind or spirit then cause additional damage upon immediate loved ones and friends and the community at large.
This is the uncounted cost of war: thousands of traumatized persons whose training in violence cannot be controlled by superior officers or higher moralities but explodes against themselves or others with ripples of negative effects traveling out into the community in all cases.
This is not an argument to excuse the actions of Hassan, or to imply that we take less seriously the damage that can be done by religious or ideological fervor that sanctions violence against others. Hasan is responsible. The religious and ideologies that sanction violence are responsible. And, so are we until we tell our government, our leaders to quit condemning us to self destruction by fighting wars based on lies, without reason, without end, without any measurable benefit to human beings. Only Hasan will be held responsible and pay the price for his actions. We will exonerate ourselves, hoping that we can continue to find others to pay the price for our irresponsibility.

Tsunami Recovery

I think it is a sure bet that the way history will record these recent times in our nation and in the world is to say that the eight years of Bush/Cheney was something like an economic, social, political and military tsunami that put our nation, and the rest of the world in a big whole. Now we are digging out. In Iraq, despite the critics who said that a strategy for pulling out would not work, it seems we hare abouthalf dug out of a war tht did not need to be fought, accomplished nothing in the war on terror and empowered Iran for regional hegemony. In the economy it looks like we are about half dug out with unemployment close to peaking, economic indicators on the rise and the banking industry about half healthy. In addressing the pressing social questions within the United States, we have seen some progress on questions related to inclusion of gays and lesbians and we will likely have a health care legislation that will go about half way in solving our health care problem. On immigration we are far away from a solution, not because there is no solution but because all the reasonable ones are opposed by large interests on the right. In terms of restoring the integrity of both our relations with other nations and our integrity on questions of human rights and international treaties we are about half the way bqck from the disastrous last eight years and, the Nobel committee conisdered this such a significant digging out accomplishement that it gave is Peace Prize to President Obama.

As is the case of the war in Iraq, none of this progress is irreversible and, if left to the right wing of the country, it would all be reversed and we could go back into the hole. And there is still much to be done to get back to where we were some years ago in the economy, in the social health of the nation, in relations with other countries, in respecting human rights treaties and agreements, in addressing global warming, etc.

The one place where the hole has gotten deeper is Afghanistan. This should not be a surprise. Despite widespread support even among some who normally oppose military action, the war against Afghanista was the biggest mistake of the Bush/Cheney era which is saying something since Iraq wasa huge mistake. Afghanistan was a mistake because it was the wrong strategy for addressing 9/11, because it failed in both its objectives: disarticulate Al Quaeda and establish a non-Taliban state in Afghanistan. A smart strategy would have been to concentrate on disarticulating Al Quaeda and provide both carrot and stick reasons for the Taliban to help us; surround the country with intelligence and surgically accurate ability to attack Al Quaeda sites; work with Pakistan to remove (ahead of time) the western part of Pakistan as the hideout and safe ground for Al Quaeda and work slowly and surely to destroy the Al Quaeda infrastructure and disarticulate by police action, the organization. As it is, both the Taliban and Al Quaeda have not only survived, but, in the area, enjoy greater strength now than at the close of the offical war. And, cooridnated intelligence with European partners and others has resulted in a greater capacity in the Western world to interupt and avoid terrorist activities on the home ground.

Digging out of Afghanistan is the most difficult task left by Bush/Cheney for the Obama administration. Afghanistan is even less of a nation than Iraq, cobbled together from disparate geographies and tribes and warlord areas that met the criteria of falling, geographically between Pakistan and Iran. Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, has been systematically destroyed in all aspects of life by decades of war with Russia and between its own factions. It has not existing health or educational or public utilities system as did and does Iraq. It has not national culture at all, or national pride and it has no oil, its one economic generator being a product that lucrative but declared unwanted by the rest of the world.

There is only one thing to do in Afghanistan - leave, while maintaining a regional capacity/partnership in addressing the threat of Al Quaeda not only to our security but to the security of the region. how many years does it take to do this? How many troops for how long does it take to do this? What agreements and partnerships with NATO, UN, Pakistan, Russia and Iran do we need to do this? None of the answers seem apparant.

The clearest aspect of answering these questions is that sending 40,000 more troops with the hopes that it will work like the surge in Iraq is not a good idea. What is needed is an exit strategy for the war against the Taliban, a realistic plan for rebuilding the country's infrastructure and health and education systems, and a plan for working with others to continue to monitor and slowly disarticulate the Al Quaeda terror network.

It would appear that the Obama Administration is working exactly in this direction, but, President Obama and the American people should not be surprised that even the best laid plans of mice and men will go awry in Afghanistan. This may be the hole out of which one cannot dig.

NOBEL OBAMA

Those who have expressed doubt about the naming of President Obama as the Nobel Peace Proze for this year have forgotten how dangerously close we came in the previous American administration to undoing the international network of agreements, networks, alliances and understandings that limit war and sometimes can make peace. Those who sit on the Nobel committees to make these decisions surely considered the basic question of who, or what organization made the largest, most important contribution to peacemaking in the past year. President Obama may have not been the only name of the list, but I think it can be argued that he deserved to be at the top of the list. Americans probably do not appreciate how much damage the Bush/Cheney years did to international cooperation and the climate for peace in the rest of the world. It is a symptom of the deep malaise in the right wing of our country that they complain the loudest about the decision to give President Obama the Nobel prize when it is exactly this right wing takeover of the foreign policy of the country that created the conditions in which an Obama could and should have emerged. They just do not get it. There is a huge, important and absolutely critical difference between an America bent on Empire and an America dedicated to leading an international community that pursues, to the extent that such a complicated network of nations, cultures and political interests can be expected to, a coordinated effort to reduce the use of violence to resolve conflicts in the world.

This does not mean that President Obama has done all that he could or will do to reduce the threat of war and the reality of war or to turn around the whole of the foriegn policy apparatus of the United States to a more reasonable and more effective commitment to real statesmanship and diplomacy. And, the Nobel has little ability to really influence the process of resolving the extremely difficult problems on the ground left by the last administration: Afghanistan, Middle East and Iran/North Korea. Nevertheless, the Nobel can give support to a President who seems committed to turning around our approach to the world in a way that benefits both our national interests and peace in the world and, for that, all Americans should be thankful.