Tag Archives: Gaddafi

Political Rants

The Bolton effect

Well, it has taken, what … two weeks? Two weeks for Bolton to blow up not only the Iran deal but the nascent detente with North Korea as well. Quite an accomplishment, but then he is the same John Bolton that helped lie us into Iraq and provoke an earlier standoff with Iran and North Korea, back in his Bush 43 days. And while I hate to give the man too much credit for being relevant, Kim Jong Un did call him out by name in that communique, citing Bolton’s comments about disarming North Korea along the same lines as what the U.S. did with Libya. Now, I have to think Bolton knew what effect his words would have. I doubt that he would have believed the North Koreans would think that a positive comparison. (Clearly, they did not).

Dead wrong ... for different reasonsBolton appears to have leveraged the fact that our credibility is shot in order to foment this crisis. The world doesn’t need reminding that in Libya, we talked Qaddafi out of his nuclear arsenal, then supported an uprising against him that ended with this murder. They don’t need reminding that both Iraq and Afghanistan, non nuclear states, were both invaded by us and are still under the partial control of our military. So, they know that we are liable to attack if you don’t have nuclear weapons … or if the U.S. manages to talk you into relinquishing your arsenal. What lessons would you draw from this kind of behavior?

Not that Bolton alone has brought us to this point. Trump’s big mouth, apparently, played some role. Kim Jong Un, it appears, watches American television (or has people do that for him) and was able to hear Trump bragging about his initiative regarding Korea, boasting that no other president had done what he had done, soaking in the calls for a Nobel prize. But this Trumpian noise is not rooted in any ideology aside from Trump’s own cult of personality. Bolton, on the other hand, has an ideological foundation, not as a neocon, but more as an old-style imperial interventionist who disdains international institutions as irrelevant and values overwhelming American power over all else. He represents a deeply rooted mindset in our foreign and military policy establishment, and people like Bolton can use Trump to further their ends. They may have to pick their fights a little carefully, but that shouldn’t be a problem for an old hand like Mr. Mustache.

Hey, people – we knew it was going to be bad. And it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Just push for peace … that’s all we can do.

60 Dead in Gaza. What a disgusting spectacle this week has been – Trump’s spawn celebrating the new American embassy in Jerusalem while IDF snipers pick off protesters at the Gaza border with deadly precision. More on this later. Again … worse before it gets better.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Hors de combat.

I’m not a big fan of the notion that people in custody should be abused, beaten, or killed. Once you have them restrained, if circumstances warrant it, that should be enough. Seeing Gaddafi beaten and bloodied, then expired with a bullet hole in his head was kind of sickening, frankly. Sure, he was an autocratic asshole. But he was also defeated and in custody. If the Libyans are starting their brave new future with extrajudicial killings, it doesn’t sound too promising. But then, I suppose, that would put them in the same league as their sponsors … particularly, us.

It’s been said that the Libya intervention is Iraq done the Obama way. Today kind of underlines that notion a bit. We didn’t get all arrogant about it or act unilaterally. We pushed through a UN resolution – something Bush couldn’t have had and probably wouldn’t have wanted, since his administration was actively trying to sideline the UN. Obama is a true imperial internationalist, and the product of that is the kinds of interventions you see in Kosovo and Libya and the kinds of coups you see in Honduras, as opposed to his predecessor’s far more blustering approach to wars and proxy overthrows. Sure, neither is a fly on Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, or even Reagan when it comes to mass killing. But Obama acts to sustain the empire, not destroy it. Bush apparently couldn’t care less about it.

My main concern is that we appear to be going the way of all empires. We are getting more comfortable with the trappings of imperial adventure. We are, in a sense, getting meaner as a society, more willing to mete out harsh “justice”, more attached to our bloodlust. We are, it’s also worth pointing out, falling apart from the inside out, the very bones of our civilization progressively embrittled by forced divestment and diversion of revenues to the maintenance of foreign wars, occupations, and forward bases. As Yeats wrote (later repurposed by Achebe), “the center cannot hold and things fall apart”. Our devotion to maintaining our neoliberal empire at all costs is driving us into a period of significant decline – one that cannot be ameliorated by the deaths in custody of third-tier dictators.

This is not an inevitable process. It’s a choice, and we can choose otherwise. Up to us. Imagine that.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Radioactive.

It’s a little hard to boil down everything that has taken place this week into a single blog entry, so I won’t even try. As has become my habit, I will take brief swings at a couple of topics and let the chips fall where they may.

Japan Agonistes. Something like a triplet of biblical plagues have settled upon Japan, and all three share a grim history with that unfortunate nation. They are no strangers to severe earthquakes and tsunamis, the latter of which, by no accident, is known around the globe by its Japanese name. Nuclear disaster is, of course, something we first introduced them to at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It bears reminding that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was built on a design mapped out by General Electric – one long thought to be vulnerable to this kind of disaster. What possessed otherwise smart people to build such a plant on the coast of Japan is beyond me, particularly given Japan’s unique experience with the depredations of nuclear radiation.

Clearly no reactor is designed to withstand 9.0 earthquakes and colossal, history-making tsunamis – this one least of all, which at last look appeared from above like an ashtray at the end of an all-night poker game. One can only guess at what the long-term effects of this disaster will be. As one commentator recently put it, we all (those here since 1986, at least) have a piece of Chernobyl in us. Likely we will soon have some Fukushima Daiichi alongside it. (The knowledge that structurally similar plants are operating all over the U.S. is particularly sobering, as well.)

Cavalry Coming? The U.N. Security Council has approved 10-0 (with 5 abstentions) a resolution on Libya authorizing a no-fly zone and other measures as deemed necessary. Gaddafi has called a cease-fire in the wake of this decision, though reports from the country demonstrate that this is a hollow charade. I can’t say that I am overjoyed with the thought of the United States stumbling into this conflict. We seldom make things better; more often, much worse. (We also fuck it up when we do nothing – see Bahrain.) It’s hard, though, to listen to the voices of those people in Benghazi and not want to help. I just wonder how much help dropping bombs will prove to be. We would be “taking out” air defense installations. What are these? In essence, they are people – Libyan people with families, clan relations, etc.

Killing is never a simple matter.  The best thing we in the West might have done for these people is not to have sold their crackpot leader weapons in the first place.

luv u,

jp