Recommended: The Shores of Tripoli: Our Latest Wilsonian War

Walter Russell Mead, a writer who really understands the broadest sweeps of history (he is James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College) has a good article in the March 30 The America Interest website entitled The Shores of Tripoli: Our Latest Wilsonian War. It is well worth reading.

Whatever the overeager advisers around President Obama thought when they convinced him to put our collective American hand into this dogfight, a simple no-fly zone looks like it isn't going to do the job (once again, air power has been oversold to a naive president!), and one wonders how much farther into the fight we will be drawn, and how much more (borrowed) money we will waste before it is all over.  America does indeed have some "Wilsonian" responsibilities to promote moral values in the world (and even at home, one hopes), but that has to be tempered with some common sense and perspective and reality.  I don't see the latter here.

Recommended: Wall Street: Aiding Economic Recovery, or Strangling It?

I have observed before that one of the serious problems with America these days is that so many of our best and brightest are diverted from careers in science and engineering, where they might produce useful innovations and advances, into careers on Wall Street, where they essentially get rich by gambling.  In this regard, the article Wall Street: Aiding Economic Recovery, or Strangling It? from Monday's Time Magazine site is of interest.

Finance has become one of the largest portions of the nation's economic activity, yet in essence it produces nothing of real value, and really is just a large scale, socially-acceptable form of gambling.  That ought to worry us.  It also ought to worry us that this shift toward non-productive financial activity occurred in Britain just before it started it's slide from first-world status.  Are we following the same path?

The government we deserve

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are warily circling around the elephant in the room, the huge deficits that entitlement programs are creating, but neither side wants to take the politically risky step of being the first to propose the cuts that are obviously needed.  President Obama is either abstaining entirely from the debate or holding his fire to be prepared to make political capital of any Republican attempt to modify Social Security or Medicare,  Either way, he certainly isn’t leading the effort to solve the problem.

It would be easy to blame the Washington politicians for failing to do the politically hard but necessary things to bring the Federal budget back to sanity, but in fact the government in Washington is exactly the government we, the American voters, put into office.  So in the end, responsibility for our feckless politicians rests entirely with us.

The real question isn’t whether Washington politicians will find the backbone, the strength of character and the wisdom to do the painful but necessary pruning of Federal programs, but whether we, the American voters, will find the backbone, the strength of character and the wisdom to vote into office politicians who will do what is necessary, even if it means sacrifices in our own paychecks and benefits.

If we Americans continue to demand  that the government fund programs we can’t afford, using borrowed money, then when the inevitable consequences of this stupid policy finally hit us (and hit us they will!), we have no one to blame but our own greed, gullibility, and short-sightedness.  In the end, we the American  voters get the government, and the consequences, we deserve.

Perhaps we should be in the streets too....

I don't know.  As I watch one Arab nation after another take to the streets to oust incompetent kleptocracies, I can't help but wonder if we American's shouldn't be demonstrating in the streets too, to oust a Washington establishment in both parties that appears to have become completely out of touch with reality, and completely in the pockets of wealthy and influential  corporations, lobbyists and individuals.

As time goes on and Congress fiddles ineffectually while the deficit explodes and the president gets us into yet another expensive military action with no end game, I find myself more and more in sympathy with the Tea Party movement. Yes, there are some crazies in it, but I'm beginning to think I might prefer the occasional crazies in the Tea Party movement to the current Washington establishment if that would bring at least some semblance of sanity and reality back to our government.

More down the rabbit hole

At the same time that the Republicans are making a big deal of trying to defund National Public Radio (in 2009 NPR received only 6% of its funding from local and state sources, and no direct funding from the Federal government)  in the name of cutting the Federal budget, it is revealed that General Electric made a profit of $14.2 BILLION in 2010, yet paid no taxes. In fact, GE got a $3.2 BILLION tax benefit from the government, no doubt in part because it filled its tax department with ex-Treasury and ex-IRS people, and ex-Congressional staffers.  GE also paid no tax in 2009.

If anyone doubted that the US government system is highly dysfunctional, and well and truly in the hands of the rich and powerful, this ought to lay that doubt to rest.

By the way, Exxon  (2009 profits $19.42 BILLION) and Bank of America (2009 profits $4 BILLION) also paid no taxes in 2009. And I suspect the list is a good bit longer.

Recommended: Down the Rabbit Hole

Adam Garfinkle has an interesting and relevant article in the March 22, 20111 online issue of The American Interest.  His article, Down the Rabbit Hole, makes the point that it is almost impossible to discern what the administration's policy or aims are in this Libyan intervention. One would think that now that we are engaged in two -- count them, TWO -- decades-long wars with no apparent exit strategy, and no meaningful foreign policy objectives, the administration might have had the sense not to get involved in a third one. But no, Obama has managed to follow the Bush administration into yet another briar patch, another extraordinarily expensive military adventure (Tomahawk missiles cost just over $1 million apiece, and we fired over 100 of them the first night !!!) with no apparent long-term strategy.

I look at our leadership in Washington with despair!   We face a budget deficit of about $2 TRILLION dollars this year alone, neither Congress nor the President seem to be able to muster the courage to make more than token budget cuts, and yet the administration can blow over $100 million in one night on a quixotic "intervention" in a tribally-based civil war whose cultural dynamics we don't even understand!  This is indeed "going down the rabbit hole".

So here is the fundamental question

In thinking about a coherent strategic foreign policy for America, here is the fundamental question to ask as the Obama administration debates actions: are America's long-term interests better served by supporting (1) an autocratic government that is friendly to American interests and willing to be helpful, like Saudi Arabia (and like Mubarik was in Egypt), or (2) a popularly elected government that is hostile to America and its interests, like Hamas in the West Bank?

There is a popular delusion among both liberals and conservatives that democracy and popular elections inevitably lead to better governments. But in fact, in the absence of of some key institutions and attitudes in a culture, such as the rule of law and property rights and an informed, educated electorate, popular elections frequently just enthrone another autocratic regime.  It is worth remembering that Hitler came to power in an honest popular election, and in a nation that had the sort of institutions and traditions that one generally expects to support a working democracy.  Popular elections do not always produce good governments, and they certainly don't always help America's long-term interests.