Special Foreign Policy Edition!

Let me begin by saying, as versed as I perceive myself to be in United States domestic issues, I can by no means say that I am well acquainted with the global theater of politics. I know of other countries and places, but I cannot in true confidence say that I know and/or understand the intricacies of international diplomacy or the issues that surround it.

But when did that ever stop an American from speaking obnoxiously before?

So here's the part where I will go through a few hot button issues from the international political community and shoehorn my opinions and ideas onto those global situations. Who knows, I may say something relatively comprehensible?

Mexico's War on Drugs

I don't have too much to say about this. I'm only going to say, if marijuana were legal in the United States, then you can bet your bottom dollar that this conflict would not have gotten as insane as it has become. I'm just saying, it seems like an awful lot of suffering and pain, not only for the people of Mexico, but also for the people of the Southwest United States, over a substance that inhibits human thought just as much as alcohol.

Mexico and Central America's Illegal Emigration Problem

Personally, I think this is a lost cause to fight against. Unless an unreasonable amount of money is spent to build fortifications and fund troops to patrol the border, there is no way to completely protect our country from illegal immigrants. So why are we still playing this game? Open the damn borders! Make the immigration and work visa process more accessible and in return, we get a strong, reliable immigrant work force. Our country is founded on the concept that we accept immigrants with open arms and give them a shot at the American Dream. Why would we be against that very idea being realized by Mexicans and Central Americans?

Allied with Israel

Look, I am all for being allied with Israel. I feel they have every right to exist as a nation and that they are a valuable partner in the Middle East. But the way they act, especially recently with their insistence on establishing settlements in Palestinian land, is downright hostile and is an instigation of conflict. Being allied with states that insight conflict regularly with their neighbor was what dragged the western world into the first World War. And quite frankly, President Obama is letting them walk all over him. We do not depend on Israel, Israel depends on our nuclear umbrella for their protection. Why should we concede to the ridiculous whims of the Israeli leadership? If they would like to incite conflict with the Palestinians over something petty like building settlements, then I say they can fend for themselves. We cannot be asked to protect a nation that has no interest in acting peacefully itself. If we want peace in the Middle East, then the U.S. must play its hand and force Israel into peace discussions if it would like our protection. Additionally, taking a hard line with Israel may increase popularity among the increasingly important Islamic states in the Middle East.

North Korea's Bluff

With all due respect, President Obama, Kim Jong-Il has been playing you. His entire facade of malicious intent and fierceness is a bluff. His country has nothing. His people have nothing. His military is a hollow shell with a scary wrapping around it. North Korea is nothing. They are not a threat to the United States or its allies. If they ever attacked us or one of our allies, they would be crushed. Do not concede to a nation built on indoctrination and tyranny, they have nothing to leverage against us.

The Genocide in Darfur

This is a travesty. I am appalled that it has gone essentially uninhibited for decades. I don't know what can be done short of going to war, but it cannot be permitted to go on.

The War in Afghanistan

This war and the one in Iraq, have been sorely mishandled for nearly a decade. I am happy to see President Obama is winding down U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and I agree that it is only responsible to do so at a reasonable pace so as to not cause distress in Iraq. Afghanistan is also being handled surprisingly well since Obama took office as well, not surprising because Obama is a Democrat, surprising because the war there had so terribly been handled for a decade that its strange to see any progress being made. But what's important about Afghanistan is not the war that will secure the nation, but the endgame of the conflict. The United States has secured Afghanistan before, back when the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan in 1979, it is possible. It's the endgame that our country failed the Afghan people in. The lesson learned in 1989 at the end of the war is that we cannot simply leave after the war is over. If we want Afghanistan to become a productive, U.S. friendly state in the Middle East, we will need to stay after the war and invest in the formation of roads and other infrastructure and support a public education system that includes young girls. If we don't stay after and ensure the new Afghan state forms properly, then the past 10 years and the undetermined expanse of the future will have been for nothing. We must make sure to finish the fight and then finish building the nation.

Alright, there's a little taste of my form of foreign policy. To be blunt, it was less fun than I thought it was going to be. Nonetheless, this has been the special foreign policy edition of the Nothing is fact; Everything is true. The end. :P

A Lion in the Court

John Paul Stevens, you have been a most worthy addition to the Supreme Court. Nominated by Gerald Ford back in 1975, you were selected as a seemingly non-activist addition to the court after the retirement of Justice William Douglas. You turned out to be one of the most staunchly liberal members to ever sit on the court and you have served the country well in your extraordinary 35 years of service on the bench. You have earned you retirement.

And now President Obama, it is time once again to dance this ridiculous dance with Republicans, the Anti-Liberal Activism Rave. I say rave because ultimately it's not about the music, it's about the drug you're on. DO NOT, under any circumstances Mr. President, listen to this, to put it politely, bologna.

Keep in mind that Republicans had absolutely no qualms about confirming a couple of conservative activist judges in the Bush years, most importantly now Chief Justice Roberts, who was only 50 years old at his confirmation (keep in mind, Stevens was 55 when confirmed, and, again, he served for 35 years!) They certainly didn't mind Roberts' extraordinarily conservative jurisprudence and his service specifically in the Reagan and H.W. Bush Administrations, or Samuel Alito's, President Bush's other nominee, consistent rulings on the U.S. Court of Appeals on the Third Circuit in favor extreme gun ownership and against worker's rights.

The court already has a 5-4 majority in favor of conservative judges and at the end of this session of the court, we will be losing the most liberal justice the court has ever seen! Now is not a time to pander to the petty desires of a party that runs on a platform of deceit and hyperbole. Pick somebody liberal! Shoot for the bleachers! We got Sotomayor in there, a she's pretty damn liberal! Granted, we had a supermajority back then in the Senate, by she was still confirmed by a vote of 68-31. We can get another one in there!

Let's pick somebody truly liberal! Get someone like Diane Wood in there. She's ridiculously intelligent when it comes to the law and has been able to hold her own against some seriously influential federal judges on the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She's a very strong candidate and she could probably get in considering her unanimous consent when she was nominated to the court by President Clinton (after the 1994 Gingrich fueled election catastrophe I might add.)

Or, even better, Pam Karlan, from Stanford! She is ridiculously liberal and has ample experience advocating before the Supreme Court! And she's a lesbian! Imagine the political points if you could get her confirmed... And she'd be a liberal force on the same level as Justice Stevens!

I know, I know. You're probably going to go with Elena Kagan. It's a pretty safe choice. She does lean liberal and she is highly qualified. Plus, she is seen as being "non-activist", which will get her through the Senate much easier. And I know, she is great at drawing people together and convincing people of her side of the argument, which may be all we need if we can just convince Justice Antonin Scalia's parrot (i.e. Justice Thomas) to jump off of his shoulder for a minute and agree with the liberal block every once in a while. And she might even be a lesbian, maybe, which would be good.

But President Obama, with all due respect, do not pussy out on this. If you can get one of the liberal lions into the court, do it. And make sure Hilary Clinton is ready for when that third nomination comes your way. I know you're waiting for it, and I can't wait to see Hilary in the old penguin costume. Make it happen!

Dropping the N-Bomb

Nuclear.

Egads! Nuclear weapons! The Muslims are coming with them, they want to kill all the poor Christian (read: white) people! We need nuclear weapons to deter them.

...

Okay, I'm going to give you one simple reason why the Obama Administration's new nuclear posture is the smartest thing that the president could possibly do with our nuclear arsenal.

We do not live in 1940. Or 1989 for that matter.

On August 6th and 9th, 1945, the people of the world saw the horrors of the use of nuclear weapons. Between the two bombings and the subsequent deaths due to radiation and injury, 410,000 people died with no discretion between citizen and soldier, between guilty and innocent. The world does not need to see that level of inhumanity ever again.

And there's no need for it to. We do not live in the 1930's and 40's; nations do not go to war with each other on the level that was witnessed within the World War conflicts. Very few of today's enemies can be easily recognized as states. I will grant, there are a few "rogue states" that weild an aggressive stance against the United States and the rest of Western culture, nations like Iran and North Korea, that are pursuing nuclear weapons.

However, in today's environment, foes are not defined by borders, but by ideas. While the distinction was one in the same in the 20th century, Nazism in Germany, Totalitarian Communism in the U.S.S.R., today the two groups are distinct. For example, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are based in Afghanistan, however, not all of the people of Afghanistan are part of al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

And likewise in there physical differences, states of government and groups of people brought together by an idea can not be confronted in the same way. While a state can be defeated using force and nuclear weapons, killing the people that live the idea doesn't kill the idea. Take for example, Nazism. Nazi Germany, the nation, was defeated more than 60 years ago; but even today, many people in the Neo-Nazi movement still believe in the tenets of Nazism, anti-sematism, and white supremacy.

Nuclear weapons are completely useless in defeating most of today's foes of ideas. There is no target to aim for; there is no set base to strike. Ideas are preserved not in physical entities and buildings, but in the minds and histories of people. The Obama Administration understands this. While some force may be necessary to calm the more extreme fringes of a movement, ultimately it is education and economic partnership that will defeat ideas that breed violence and threaten global security.

Conservative wingnuts are simply that. To decry the elimination of only one third of the massive U.S. nuclear weapon supply is ridiculous. These levels of weapons served only to further the deterrence of Mutually Assured Destruction in the 1970's and '80s, and today they are a careless conservative's button press away from global overkill. To have these levels of weapons makes no sense today. By eliminating these weapons, it not only improves the security of the world in the event of a computer malfunction, but also shows nuclear states and rogue states that the United States is serious about disarmament, seeks to preserve the world from the horrors of nuclear holocaust, and wants to prove its ability to not just be a nation of war, but an entity of peace and prosperity. And the world, along with the United States, will be better for it.

The Cost of Nothing

Wow, look at how the time has flown! Ah geez, it's been almost three weeks since I posted anything! But fortunately, in that time, so much has come to pass in the world of American politics! Justice John Paul Stevens, the "liberal lion" of the U.S. Supreme Court, is retiring, giving Barrack Obama his second opportunity to select a new justice for the Supreme Court. The Obama Administration announced its new nuclear posture and strategy and held an international conference on the dangers of nuclear weapons in the modern world. And the Wall Street Financial Reform Bill passed out of committee and looks to be headed for floor discussion within the next few weeks. And I'll get to all of these topics in time.

But for now, financial reform. It lacks the glamor of the battle for health care reform, a struggle that had taken a century to find any sort of progress, but in some ways it is more important than any other piece of legislation brought before the 111th Congress.

The idea of this piece of legislature is to restore restrictions on the banking industry to prevent the sort of economic disaster that struck our country more than a year ago. The bill, authored by Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, is a fairly moderate approach to this solution, bringing in some restrictions on the ways banks can handle debt and derivatives, requiring transparency in the business practices of big banks, and creating a fund, which is funded by taxes and fees on banks, not U.S. citizens, that would be used, in the event of a similar failure, to bail out the banks again, this time without citizen tax payer money, and pay back the bailout of 2008.

However, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Minority Leader, has risen vehemently against this bill. Even after a slew of compromises, especially in the field of forming an independent consumer protection agency to oversee the conduct of banking entities, and especially after a private meeting with a couple dozen heads of big banking enterprises, the Minority Leader has demonstrated a complete disdain for the legislature. He claims, and has misinformed, to the public that the bill fuels future tax payer bailouts and does nothing to reign in the practices of these out of control banks. His solution: do nothing. Simply allow banks to do whatever they want and when the consequences catch up with them, allow them to fail. To McConnell, the only service of this bill should be to make bailing out of financial institutions illegal.

This is complete rubbish.

If the American economic system could support simply letting these banks fail, then the government would not have spent $700 billion bailing them out. If these banks were simply allowed the collapse, the financial state of millions of Americans, not to mention nations that depend on these banks for loans, would be jeopardized. The bankruptcy system simply does not support the kind of financial turmoil that would ensue from the collapse of the big banking system.

No, I disagree with good ol' Mitch. We simply cannot afford to do nothing. As an alternative, I say we do everything we can to put the financial industry in check. Independent regulatory agencies and other measures to give the bite back to the regulators is a no brainer. These regulators lacked the force, the will, and the ability to do anything to prevent these corporations from following their destructive paths, our government needs to give them that power.

In my fantasy world where Republicans only control 10 seats in the Senate (yes, even in my fantasies, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas still manage to stay strongly conservative), we would go and nationalize the banking system. There would be no need for toxic loans that cause global collapse, because the pure purpose of these loans is for maximizing profit and a state-run bank would not be interested in profit. And the banks would be mandated not to hoard funds and continue lending money for economic growth. The Bank of North Dakota has proven that such a system works, is stable, and keeps the state's budget in the green and the state's economy growing. But alas, we do not live in this fantasy world of reason. Maybe one day we'll get here.

The single biggest impact this legislation can have on American economics would be taking a page from the great Theodore Roosevelt's book: trust-busting. How do you prevent "too big to fail" financial entities? You make them smaller. A private banking organization should not have the ability to fuel the debt spending of European powers like Greece and Spain! This is a sign of the business being "too big"! Break up these banks, make them compete with each other, and prevent them from conglomorating in the future. Prevent these banks from forming trusts and you will prevent the abuses of the system, the search for endless profits in derivative bundling, and "too big to fail". It's that simple; the government must control the banks, not the other way around.

What McConnell, not to mention the rest of the Republican Party, would like you to forget is that he, and a majority of his party, voted to approve the bailout of the financial industry. They supported the bill as the smartest measure to prevent widespread economic collapse. President Bush signed it within hours of its passage with no winks of thoughts of attempting to veto the bill because of its infringement on the free market.

The word of the Republicans is obviously subject to the political winds of election season and carries as much weight as a promise to completely eliminate taxes. One day the American people will recognize this. Until then, we need to fight forward for real action to be taken on financial reform. Otherwise, we face a leadership that has no qualms in allowing private business to abuse the rights of American citizens.