No Way Out Today.
Beijing, November 25, 2010.
Salaroche

Did you read about the way the fake Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour fooled the American and Afghani intelligence, siphoning millions of dollars from them in the process? It just makes you wonder, does anybody in Afghanistan really know who the Taliban leaders really are? Anybody?

Nope. Nobody.

Oh Boy. Were Americans duped into Afghanistan and Iraq. Want a sure way to make a fool out of America? Send American troops to go play war games in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s a Slam Dunk, guaranteed-not-to-fail way to ridicule American intelligence.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, there are no clear enemies of America in that region, just as there are no clear friends of America either. How can we expect to find true friends among the people of a culture that has no clear friends or enemies among themselves to begin with?

Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, those are countries that were created in the past few decades mostly under the influence of western powers. Of their own will those countries wouldn’t exist as political units. There are basically no national ties among their people. Those are still highly tribal societies with highly sectarian alliances, bundled together through the use of sheer force and cunning from the part of ruthless, highly corrupt rulers. The only ideology that somehow unites those tribes is Islam.

But the foolest of all possible presidential fools fooled the great majority of Americans to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and now America finds herself with her hands tied in those two foolish armed conflicts.

And the billions of dollars keep pouring into that black hole by the hundreds every year while back home the country keeps sinking deeper in debt.

And Obama? The Big Black Hope? What happened to that guy? Well, that guy turned out to be just another Wizard of Oz: Sheer bluff and no real power.

Sadly, the times for singing “God Bless America” keep fading into the past while the times for singing “God Save America” keep ringing in our ears. Fools of the Fox-news type and the tea-partying kind have taken over the American main stream media and American democracy keeps taking the wrong turn. The loonies are taking the upper hand.

Am I being a pessimist here? Have I lost faith in America’s resilience in the face of adversity? No, I’m not being a pessimist and no, I haven’t lost faith in America’s resilience in the face of adversity, but I do believe that the country needs a strong leader with a clear vision and the right conviction to pursue that vision.

The rudderless America of today needs to find its voice again, but that unifying voice is not coming out of populist clowns like Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck. In fact, these days America’s voice of the future isn’t coming out of nowhere. It isn’t coming out at all. Nobody in the American political landscape is articulating a clear way forward into the future.

In today’s America, the loudest voices are those of the fools.

I guess the first decade of the twenty-first century will be remembered in the history books as “that darn decade”, or something highly unpleasant of that sort. Hopefully, it will only be ONE darn decade, but no more.

But genius is as genius does, and America still has that spark of greatness in her. Will that spark ignite the genie again? Let’s hope so. In the meantime, let me just say: God Save America!

Salaroche