It really does matter if we "get it right". I dont think we can overemphasize the importance of it. What if, for instance, long ago when President Carter tried to get the nation to embrace a huge initiative to develop alternative, safe and clean energy we would have "gotten it right" and supported him? What a difference that would have made for our day.
Why didn't we "get it right" then? I have the memory that what happened was a huge diversion caused exactly by the folks who had the most to lose if we would have "gotten it right." The large energy companies, heavily invested in oil, caused the price of oil to go out of sight and contribute to high inflation which, along with the October Surprise, engineered by these same folks, knocked Carter off the stage and brought on President Reagan who never again mentioned the subject. Still today, many honor the memory of Reagan. Reagan got it wrong!!! And still today we pay the price for it.
Just think what a huge difference it would have made if we had gotten it right and listened to and followed President Carter. Think of what would not have happened because we we would not have needed foreign oil so much, energy addicts that we are - the US interventions in Middle Easter and oil rich nations, the resulting development of terrorist networks resisting the "westernization.", the incredible economic, military and political damage of Afghanistan/Iraq. We would have less Global warming, more freedom, and a stronger economy because the new safe, clean and green energy would have created huge multiple business development opportunities that actually would be producing something that only a few companies in the hands of relatively few stockholders are proding now - the indispensible energy that we need for every aspect of life.
Excuse me, but are we absolutely so stupid that we get the most basic thing in life wrong - hello, sun and wind - no wars needed to harness the energy. No need to sell off the nation to China, Saudia Arabia, Venezuela, etc. so that we can guzzle gas.
But, no one wants to admit that we got it wrong.....in spades.. So, we are still only timidly getting into the whole arena of developing new energy sources. We are getting it wrong again. It is new energy sources - especially solar and wind that are in the national security interest and the road to economic recovery. $700 billion not for banks, not for war, but for solar and wind development. The new energy companies that would emerge actually employ real people who invest in the stock markets, pay taxes and need services - what a great idea: improve the economy by having bailouts creat jobs that contribute to the peace of the world.
Alternative energy tax incentives is not enough. We need a huge national effort to encourage production and research. This would be "getting it right." for us and for the world.
It will not happen, of course. Because if soon to be President Obama actually thinks about doing this, the vested interests will make sure we get diverted away by ...well, whatever they convince us puts our lives in immediate danger - maybe a war, maybe inflation, maybe another terrorist attack. Whatever it takes to keep us stupid.
It really does make a difference to "get it right."
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Getting It Right Matters
The benefits of "Getting it Right" are many and extremely important to getting the next part of life right. Normally, when you get it wrong, the next step is also wrong and so on, with the wrong increasing with each new next moment carrying forth more of the "wrongness." "Getting it right" normally brings a blessing, something good, even if "Getting it Right" carries with it some kind of pain (for example, "getting it right" by admitting that we "got it wrong"). Conversely, getting it wrong usually brings a curse, even if getting it wrong brings momentary pleasure or even the feeling of victory.
"Getting it Right" is not easy. It is not an exact science. It might not even be totally possible. Fortunately, getting it "mostly" right is of considerable worth and can bring many blessings to life.
It once was the case that "Getting It Right" actually mattered to people. Recently, "Getting It Right" seems to be on the decline in popularity. Still, some of us believe that "Getting It Right" matters for such things as healthy living, healthy relationships, possibilities for a good future , living in some kind of helpful harmony with others, peace, justice, etc. All good things.
That is why Iraq is really important, or going back even further, the reaction to September 11. If we don't get these two things "right", the wrong keeps mounting and the curse keeps growing. Whether or not Bush/Cheney lied to the nation about Iraq and the reasons for going to war may come down to semantics or defintions of "lie." The problem is more that Bush/Cheney got it wrong not only on the obvious things - no WMDs, no welcoming as victors, no relationship to Al Quaeda, etc (the list is too long) - but also on the not too obvious, but hugely important things - such as the wrong understanding of national security, the wrong strategy for encouraging democracy, the wrong way to build stability in the region, etc. (the list is too long).
But, tolerance for the Bush/Cheney mistakes was incredibly wide and deep not only among the political elite of both parties but also in the public mind. No one wanted to say that they go it wrong. Maybe it was a misplaced sense that saying "we got it wrong" would demoralize the troops. Maybe it was because it would be obvious to the world (as it was already) that "getting it wrong" in this case really has a hugely negative consequence for the world. Whatever the reason, there evidently is no consequence in our current political climate, for getting it wrong, except maybe lower popularity ratings. Bush/Cheney got it wrong economically, politically, geopolitically, internally and internationally. It was a clean sweep! Who evidently pays the consequences are soldiers, the reputation of the country, the economy and all of the world in a more unbalanced and unpredictable climate in almost all important arenas of life. No matter. No one wants to look at how we got it wrong and why we got it wrong.
I will make a modest suggestion. Until we go back and get it right we will continue to get it wrong and continue to suffer the consequences: economically, politically, internally, internationally.
I will make a further modest suggestion. We got September 11 wrong and, thus, created a world of insecurity, danger and instability that didn't have to be. It was not the beginning of a war. It was the work of a limited, relatively isolated terrorist network which took years, perhaps decades to develop the capability to make one strategic and dramatic strike against its perceived enemy. The only hope for Al Quaeda was that we would over react, decide to attack Afghanistan and wipe them out. They got just what they wanted because we "got it wrong" and nobody wanted to say that "we got it wrong." We got it wrong and now the terrorist networks grow internationally, have gained widespread notariety and need no public relations department for advertising their cause, and, best of all, they have what they never had before and maybe never dreamed they would have: opportunity to attack our interests on a daily basis, not in a protected area like the United States, but on their very own turf.
Going to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq is exactly what the terrorists wanted us to do. The moment we sent troops to both countries, the terrorists won the encounter. Now they had a permanent opportunity to inflict political, military and economic damage on their perceived enemies with little cost and on a daily basis.
The alternative to going to war, would have been to make peace with as many friends as we could and thus isolate the terrorists more and reduce their field of action, meanwhile increasing collaborative efforts to bring together intelligence and international policing to reduce the number of terrorist and disrupt their limited and isolated ability to inflict damage on the world.
The "surge" was wrong because it built on a wrong premise: that it is possible to find a way out of Iraq with a "victory." That possibility was eliminated the day we went to Iraq. Withdrawal is what would have defeated the terrorists because it would have denied them what they want most - daily ability to inflice damage upon our society. This is not even to mention that the primary reason the "surge" works is not 30,000 extra troops, but billions of dollars paying for the temporary loyalty of the Sunnis while heavily arming them for the internal civil wars to come in Iraq. By the way, arming the Sunnis is just another of the "getting it wrong" actions we have taken in order to try not to admit that "we got it wrong" in the first place.
Empires have this bad habit: confusing what is victory and what is defeat. Empires are blind and deaf. We will not admit it, but we really know that we got it hugely wrong in Iraq, but we still think we "got it right" in Afghanistan. But, Afghanistan is wrong for the same reasons as Iraq. Invading Afghanistan, even if by proxy, does not advance the mission of detering terrorism, but rather aids the terrorists. So, even as candidate Obama gets it right on Iraq (we should leave), he gets it wrong on Afghanistan (we should not send more troops). At a time when we need to be concentrating our economic resources on building the infrastructure of our country and improving health and education for our youth we are involved in actions which create enemiew, waste resources, entangle us in conflicts which are not our making nor available to be solved by us. Meanwhile we cannot take really effective action against the limite threat to us posed by terrorists because we cannot focus clearly, strategically and intelligently on actions which really would deter the terrorists from growing as a threat to us and others in the world.
Now, my last modes suggestion. Victory for our nation would be to provide quality education to all our youth, health care for all our families, jobs that provide living wages for alll working age people, and policies that encourage justice and peace to prevail in our nation and around the world. For the moment, the terrorist set the agenda, not common sense.
Getting it Right really does matter.
"Getting it Right" is not easy. It is not an exact science. It might not even be totally possible. Fortunately, getting it "mostly" right is of considerable worth and can bring many blessings to life.
It once was the case that "Getting It Right" actually mattered to people. Recently, "Getting It Right" seems to be on the decline in popularity. Still, some of us believe that "Getting It Right" matters for such things as healthy living, healthy relationships, possibilities for a good future , living in some kind of helpful harmony with others, peace, justice, etc. All good things.
That is why Iraq is really important, or going back even further, the reaction to September 11. If we don't get these two things "right", the wrong keeps mounting and the curse keeps growing. Whether or not Bush/Cheney lied to the nation about Iraq and the reasons for going to war may come down to semantics or defintions of "lie." The problem is more that Bush/Cheney got it wrong not only on the obvious things - no WMDs, no welcoming as victors, no relationship to Al Quaeda, etc (the list is too long) - but also on the not too obvious, but hugely important things - such as the wrong understanding of national security, the wrong strategy for encouraging democracy, the wrong way to build stability in the region, etc. (the list is too long).
But, tolerance for the Bush/Cheney mistakes was incredibly wide and deep not only among the political elite of both parties but also in the public mind. No one wanted to say that they go it wrong. Maybe it was a misplaced sense that saying "we got it wrong" would demoralize the troops. Maybe it was because it would be obvious to the world (as it was already) that "getting it wrong" in this case really has a hugely negative consequence for the world. Whatever the reason, there evidently is no consequence in our current political climate, for getting it wrong, except maybe lower popularity ratings. Bush/Cheney got it wrong economically, politically, geopolitically, internally and internationally. It was a clean sweep! Who evidently pays the consequences are soldiers, the reputation of the country, the economy and all of the world in a more unbalanced and unpredictable climate in almost all important arenas of life. No matter. No one wants to look at how we got it wrong and why we got it wrong.
I will make a modest suggestion. Until we go back and get it right we will continue to get it wrong and continue to suffer the consequences: economically, politically, internally, internationally.
I will make a further modest suggestion. We got September 11 wrong and, thus, created a world of insecurity, danger and instability that didn't have to be. It was not the beginning of a war. It was the work of a limited, relatively isolated terrorist network which took years, perhaps decades to develop the capability to make one strategic and dramatic strike against its perceived enemy. The only hope for Al Quaeda was that we would over react, decide to attack Afghanistan and wipe them out. They got just what they wanted because we "got it wrong" and nobody wanted to say that "we got it wrong." We got it wrong and now the terrorist networks grow internationally, have gained widespread notariety and need no public relations department for advertising their cause, and, best of all, they have what they never had before and maybe never dreamed they would have: opportunity to attack our interests on a daily basis, not in a protected area like the United States, but on their very own turf.
Going to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq is exactly what the terrorists wanted us to do. The moment we sent troops to both countries, the terrorists won the encounter. Now they had a permanent opportunity to inflict political, military and economic damage on their perceived enemies with little cost and on a daily basis.
The alternative to going to war, would have been to make peace with as many friends as we could and thus isolate the terrorists more and reduce their field of action, meanwhile increasing collaborative efforts to bring together intelligence and international policing to reduce the number of terrorist and disrupt their limited and isolated ability to inflict damage on the world.
The "surge" was wrong because it built on a wrong premise: that it is possible to find a way out of Iraq with a "victory." That possibility was eliminated the day we went to Iraq. Withdrawal is what would have defeated the terrorists because it would have denied them what they want most - daily ability to inflice damage upon our society. This is not even to mention that the primary reason the "surge" works is not 30,000 extra troops, but billions of dollars paying for the temporary loyalty of the Sunnis while heavily arming them for the internal civil wars to come in Iraq. By the way, arming the Sunnis is just another of the "getting it wrong" actions we have taken in order to try not to admit that "we got it wrong" in the first place.
Empires have this bad habit: confusing what is victory and what is defeat. Empires are blind and deaf. We will not admit it, but we really know that we got it hugely wrong in Iraq, but we still think we "got it right" in Afghanistan. But, Afghanistan is wrong for the same reasons as Iraq. Invading Afghanistan, even if by proxy, does not advance the mission of detering terrorism, but rather aids the terrorists. So, even as candidate Obama gets it right on Iraq (we should leave), he gets it wrong on Afghanistan (we should not send more troops). At a time when we need to be concentrating our economic resources on building the infrastructure of our country and improving health and education for our youth we are involved in actions which create enemiew, waste resources, entangle us in conflicts which are not our making nor available to be solved by us. Meanwhile we cannot take really effective action against the limite threat to us posed by terrorists because we cannot focus clearly, strategically and intelligently on actions which really would deter the terrorists from growing as a threat to us and others in the world.
Now, my last modes suggestion. Victory for our nation would be to provide quality education to all our youth, health care for all our families, jobs that provide living wages for alll working age people, and policies that encourage justice and peace to prevail in our nation and around the world. For the moment, the terrorist set the agenda, not common sense.
Getting it Right really does matter.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
And The Lord Hardened the Pharoah's Heart
With these words, the Jewish scriptures describe how powerful nations come to that point in their life when they no longer can recognize what is good for their own well being. The Pharoah was on the edge of deciding to grant the Israelites their freedom, after some rather persuasive arguments called plagues, but, the scriptures report, the Lord hardened the Pharoah's heart and he was unwilling to let the Israelites go. Big mistake! It landed the Pharoah and his huge military machine at the bottom of the Red Sea. Actual real history aside, it is the ancient minds way of describing a phenomena that is contagious among all nations/peoples who get to that point in their history and their power where they believe themselves to be outside of the normal cause and effect nature of reality.
This may be the only way to explain the American acquiesence to the deceptions of Bush/Cheney in the lead up to the war in Iraq, the "Mission Accoplished" mistake, and now the idea that the Surge Worked! and that we could possibly save the situation in Afghanistan. We have, in similar fashion to the Pharoah, passed the point of being able to recognize reality, including the most simple of all truths that normally guide human societies toward actions that are beneficial to their well being.
I suppose it will take, sometime in the future, a team skilled analysts to determine exactly what it is in the nation's history and psyche that drives them to this point where the heart is hardened to the point where even self interest is betrayed, but it might be a good guess that, like most self destructive tendencies, it begins with some deep insecurity. Insecurity, in turn, begins with substantial misplaced myths about oneself and the world.
In Egypt the hardened heart played right into the hands of the Israelites and allowed them a stunning victory over a superior military force, because the Pharoah could just not believe that a rag tag bunch of unwelcomed and illiterate immigrants could overcome his jugernaut of a nation. He committed a huge mistake and his power was drowned in sea of arrogant miscalculation.
The reality he could not see is that the Israelites were not his subjects, nor did they believe that Egypt was their home. Sooner or later they would leave and go back to where they had been born and where their dreams had always lain.
I want to skip right over all the classic mistakes that Bush/Cheney made in both Afghanistan and Iraq in both intelligence and national security theory and military strategy. I cannot think of a single thing they did right. To simplify we can just say that in Afghanistan they tried to kill a fly with a hammer and the only result was to squash the country while the fly went free and turned into a vulture. Everyone knows, of course that you cannot kill a fly with a hammer - you either surround it and eventually capture it in your net, or you kill it with a quick slap by a flexible instrument. In Iraq they fought a war no one was willing to fight and were not prepared and still are not to fight the war that the locals were ready to fight. Or, to put it even more simply: we forgot that it is not our country. Never will be. Someday we have to go home and then the locals will do what they want to do according to the histories, cultures, faiths and politics which are in their hearts and minds. That, more or less, is the way the world has always and continues to work. It happesn also to be true about Afghanistan: it is not our country!!!
If it seems too simple, it is. But a nation with a "hardened heart" has trouble seeing things so simple. It does not matter how many troops we put in either country, we will not win in either country and those who pretend that we can only continue the march toward the Red Sea.
Victory for us would be to regain our senses of what is good for ourselves and the world. Let the Middle East go! We cannot still get out of them what we think we need to be a successful nation. We have to find it within ourselves and our own country. If we have interests, as others in the world do, then join with others and start a dialogue that can actually have real benefits to us without putting not just our military, but also our society in the middle of the Red Sea in chariots not made to float. It is not our country and there is nothing there that we need for our security, much less for our prosperity and even more, for our sense of dignity.
What the Pharoah lost in his refusal to let the Israelites go was the possibility of good friends who might actually have wanted, eventually, to do something that was of mutual benefit. Instead the Pharoah wanted to control the way the Israelites served the interest of his nation and subject them. In the end he not only had no friends around him in the region, he had no army to defend him.
Removing ourselves from Iraq is smart. Moving more into Afghanistan is not smart because it is still the case that it is not our country and never will be and someday we have to leave and then the Afghanis and others in the region will do what is in their hearts, their history, their visions for the future to do.
We need a new way to engage the Middle East to create friends for the future who might actually want to do something of mutual benefit with us in the future. This is not isolation, this is not to leave confrontation of the terrorists to the side...this is something smart to do for ourselves, our children's world, the world and the future which could be full of promise.
For the moment we have met the enemy and it is us.
This may be the only way to explain the American acquiesence to the deceptions of Bush/Cheney in the lead up to the war in Iraq, the "Mission Accoplished" mistake, and now the idea that the Surge Worked! and that we could possibly save the situation in Afghanistan. We have, in similar fashion to the Pharoah, passed the point of being able to recognize reality, including the most simple of all truths that normally guide human societies toward actions that are beneficial to their well being.
I suppose it will take, sometime in the future, a team skilled analysts to determine exactly what it is in the nation's history and psyche that drives them to this point where the heart is hardened to the point where even self interest is betrayed, but it might be a good guess that, like most self destructive tendencies, it begins with some deep insecurity. Insecurity, in turn, begins with substantial misplaced myths about oneself and the world.
In Egypt the hardened heart played right into the hands of the Israelites and allowed them a stunning victory over a superior military force, because the Pharoah could just not believe that a rag tag bunch of unwelcomed and illiterate immigrants could overcome his jugernaut of a nation. He committed a huge mistake and his power was drowned in sea of arrogant miscalculation.
The reality he could not see is that the Israelites were not his subjects, nor did they believe that Egypt was their home. Sooner or later they would leave and go back to where they had been born and where their dreams had always lain.
I want to skip right over all the classic mistakes that Bush/Cheney made in both Afghanistan and Iraq in both intelligence and national security theory and military strategy. I cannot think of a single thing they did right. To simplify we can just say that in Afghanistan they tried to kill a fly with a hammer and the only result was to squash the country while the fly went free and turned into a vulture. Everyone knows, of course that you cannot kill a fly with a hammer - you either surround it and eventually capture it in your net, or you kill it with a quick slap by a flexible instrument. In Iraq they fought a war no one was willing to fight and were not prepared and still are not to fight the war that the locals were ready to fight. Or, to put it even more simply: we forgot that it is not our country. Never will be. Someday we have to go home and then the locals will do what they want to do according to the histories, cultures, faiths and politics which are in their hearts and minds. That, more or less, is the way the world has always and continues to work. It happesn also to be true about Afghanistan: it is not our country!!!
If it seems too simple, it is. But a nation with a "hardened heart" has trouble seeing things so simple. It does not matter how many troops we put in either country, we will not win in either country and those who pretend that we can only continue the march toward the Red Sea.
Victory for us would be to regain our senses of what is good for ourselves and the world. Let the Middle East go! We cannot still get out of them what we think we need to be a successful nation. We have to find it within ourselves and our own country. If we have interests, as others in the world do, then join with others and start a dialogue that can actually have real benefits to us without putting not just our military, but also our society in the middle of the Red Sea in chariots not made to float. It is not our country and there is nothing there that we need for our security, much less for our prosperity and even more, for our sense of dignity.
What the Pharoah lost in his refusal to let the Israelites go was the possibility of good friends who might actually have wanted, eventually, to do something that was of mutual benefit. Instead the Pharoah wanted to control the way the Israelites served the interest of his nation and subject them. In the end he not only had no friends around him in the region, he had no army to defend him.
Removing ourselves from Iraq is smart. Moving more into Afghanistan is not smart because it is still the case that it is not our country and never will be and someday we have to leave and then the Afghanis and others in the region will do what is in their hearts, their history, their visions for the future to do.
We need a new way to engage the Middle East to create friends for the future who might actually want to do something of mutual benefit with us in the future. This is not isolation, this is not to leave confrontation of the terrorists to the side...this is something smart to do for ourselves, our children's world, the world and the future which could be full of promise.
For the moment we have met the enemy and it is us.
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