The Entitlement Debate

[Ibrahim]

[Caskhades]

[Ibrahim]

[Alph]

[Azrael]

[Ibrahim]

[Caskhades]

[Ibrahim]

[avicenna]

[Ibrahim]

[Ibrahim]

I'm not enjoying the mean-spirited sniping as much as before. I think I've chosen the wrong career, given my apparent lack of natural animosity.

[Caskhades]

[avicenna]

[avicenna]

[AzariLoveIran]

[Captain Murphy]

I'm unconvinced that stalemates and disorder are what the US foreign policy establishment are generally aiming for, except in some specific, temporary situations. It makes no economic or broader political sense. Why would the US squander so much political goodwill and so much money on activities that don't generate any profit for us? Large US businesses would stand to profit enormously from stability and development. As it stands, who are they going to peddle their wares to in war-torn Libya or an East Africa perpetually dependent on foreign aid?

And before anyone points out that this lack of stability somehow benefits us by centralizing access to oil and other natural resources, note that US firms are not exploiting resources in Iraq and Afghanistan to the degree that they could have if those countries were led by more stable, Western-friendly governments. The Chinese and the Indians are mining Afghanistan. In Sudan, where there was comparative stability (and which the neocon geniuses that brought us Iraq also would have liked to target for regime change), US construction firms were on the ground reaping profits.

I think Ibrahim's spot on over here: between a "disastrous failure" and "brilliant plan concealed to look like disastrous failure", the answer is certainly the former. As Kissinger and Clinton noted in a recent discussion with Charlie Rose, the United States policy establishment tends to compartmentalize issues, and does not interpret them through the lens of historical arc or grand, unified strategy. That, and all the competing, constantly-rotating factions, surely must be part of the reason why everything the US seems to touch turns to shit, despite the best of our intentions.

[Captain Murphy]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Demon of Undoing]

American foreign policy is the bastard love child of constraints demanded by history and the fumes of college idealism that survived being burnt as fuel for ambition. It's an ad hoc reptilian response by unqualified idiots , overseen by professionals that quietly shake their heads and pick up the pieces. " Vision" is a punchline , the next fix the plan.

[AzariLoveIran]

[Captain Murphy]

[Ibrahim]

[Colonel Sun]

[Mr. Perfect]