Iowha?!

Of late, there has been a considerable amount of news to be discussed in the wide world of politics, at home and indeed abroad. One report of note ties the two together, I would say nicely but this is Rudolph Giuliani we’re talking about, so I’ll just leave it at that. Yesterday in New Hampshire, Signore Giuliani tried to pretend that he had at least SOME idea (original or otherwise) regarding how to confront the growing instability in Central Asia; DOUBLE the number of troops in Afghanistan! Now he has quite certainly picked out a seldom discussed issue that is Afghanistan to put on the appearance he has put a lot of thought into the matter. However, it should be mentioned that technically the occupation in Afghanistan is no longer solely an American military endeavor. Not long ago, that commander-in-chief guy handed over military control in the region to NATO; essentially so people don’t get too uppity when they hear about NATO casualties as opposed to US ones. It just so happens though that NATO is considerably constituted of American forces – so Rudy, should we really double down in Afghanistan? If so, are we talking about NATO forces or our own? Is that a trick question? If you ask Mike Huckabee, Afghanistan is that nation to the west of Pakistan so perhaps Giuliani has at least a leg up on him in that regard! Huckabee also seems to think that Pakistanis constitute the highest number of illegal immigrants (next to the Mexicans, of course) – they don’t, not even close Mike.

Last week I attempted to commence writing about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the potential aftermath/fallout. Obviously most commentary is mere speculation at best. The elections have been moved back to later in February and Ms. Bhutto’s husband and son have picked up where she left off the best they can under the circumstances. One lesson should be that this is yet another example where the US really does not wield as much power as it thinks it does. Throwing billions and billions of dollars at a problem (i.e. General Pervez Musharraf, a.k.a. Uncle Perv) is meaningless if there is no ‘strategery’ behind it. We have witnessed this time and time again with this administration and it seems to be a reflection on their general air of privilege and entitlement. Having copious amounts of money and the ‘friends’ that come as part of the deal are most always enough to solve any problem that might inconvenience these people. Unfortunately for them, but even more so for us, this is not how it works in the world abroad and it is not how it SHOULD work here in the ‘homeland’ (Heil Bush).

I sincerely hope that whoever is elected president later this year will come to office with a general understanding that there is only so much a country can do to help another. I hope the air of American Arrogance-themed policies will have subsided considerably and we can get back to actually making this world a better place for all instead of for a very, very select few (and far between). By the time this entry has been posted, the Iowa Caucuses may have already been decided, but this New Year should represent great hope and change in this country as rays of hope and light will finally shine after a very dark and unnecessarily long period in its history.