American Checkers, Persian Chess

Americans play checkers, the Persians play chess. In Middle East intrigue, Americans are outclassed. The Persians have been around for at least 5,000 years. Americans are johnnys-come-lately.

Americans in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq, contend with Iranian influence in the governments they support. Nuri al Maliki, Iraq's PM, has long-established ties with Iran, and has recently worked out a coalition agreement with the Sadrist party, supported by Iran. What is the US to do? Maliki was supposed to be our man, nurtured and financed by the US.

Now, we find out that Hamid Karzai, Afghan President, our client in Kabul, has a chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, who is not only pro-Iranian, but Iran's conduit for illicit cash in the millions of Euros a month. His mission, it seems, is to poison Afghan-American relations.

The plot thickens: Daudzai and his friends were members of Hezb-i-Islami, a brutal, militant Islamist group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now lives in Iran, but has ties to the Taliban. Iran in the west, like Pakistan in the east, maintains ties and provides aid to the Taliban, as well as the government. The intelligence communities of both neighboring countries vie for influence among the Taliban, the President, and with his opponents in Afghan politics.

While Pakistan is our reluctant, or resistant ally, Iran is our rival for power in the region. Yet, both have interests in furthering Afghan stability as well as their own influence; chaos on their borders might provide opportunities to extend their power, but it also endangers their own governments.

Just as the US blundered into an age-old civil war in Iraq--between Shiite and Sunni--a game in which the Persians were deeply engaged, it has done something similar in Afghanistan. Except, the Afghan game is much more complicated. The civil war between the government we installed, and the Taliban, has been ongoing for generations, between Pathans and the peoples of the northern alliance: largely Tajik and Uzbek. Meanwhile, the nations to Afghanistan's east and west have been vying for power in Afghanistan for hundreds of years.

The British Empire marched into Afghanistan from India, and was routed. The Soviets occupied Afghanistan, but were driven out. Will the US leave more gracefully?

Afghanistan's neighbors use more subtle methods: cash bribes, safe refuges, training, and control through their intelligence services. They will outlast the crude Westerners, who think that power comes from more and better weapons. Effective weapons, as the Vietnamese and Iraqis demonstrated, can be stolen, or cobbled together from the wasteful and over-generous supplies of the invader.

Rome in its decline, abandoned its push east into Parthia: the East was too complicated. The US, also a declining empire, is baffled by the complex intricacies of the region. Which will come first: bankruptcy or defeat? Or will the US withdraw in time?

Full Spectrum Dominance

…is what the Pentagon insists on maintaining--globally! Dominance: on Land, Air, Sea and Space. Among professional American military, the "long war" is an assumption, not just a consensus. Talk about Global Empire!

American Generals don't think much about economics. America is "the greatest nation on earth," so it can afford endless war everywhere. For the Generals, Admirals, Colonels, Majors, Captains etc., it's a great deal. Back home, we may have to scrimp, or worry about losing jobs, or homes, but the more wars there are, the better for the officers and NCO's. Defense industries depend on it and profit handsomely, too. So what, if the rest of America has to cut Social Security and Medicare to pay for it!

Defense spending is the largest "discretionary" item in the US budget, always, war or no war. And since WWII, it has always gone up. Why?

Have dangers escalated? No. With the end of the Cold War, the Soviets, the only power that could annihilate large parts of the US, collapsed; it re-emerged as resource-rich Russia, with only regional ambitions. The Chinese were briefly our enemies, during the Korean War, but they also have only regional ambitions, and never had the Soviet's capability of destroying the US.

Media commentators express alarm that a growing and prosperous China is building up its military, but its budget is about one-tenth of ours, even though it is the second richest nation, and the one with the most money to squander: we have huge trade deficits, they have huge surpluses.

So, why does DOD's budget go up every year? Why are we still in Iraq, although we're supposedly no longer fighting, and in Afghanistan, building huge bases, although we're supposed to be "starting" withdrawal next summer?

Excerpts from Woodward's Obama's War indicate that it really isn't his war. It's Petraeus's, and the other Generals'. Obama insisted on an exit date, and Petraeus, and company, have been chipping away at that ever since: if the military has anything to say (unfortunately, it has the loudest voice), we'll be fighting in Afghanistan until at least 2020. And we'll find other enemies, too, even if only a few hundred "extremists" here and there.

In the 1930's, Japan had the trappings of democracy, but it was controlled by the military, using the charisma of the Emperor to rally the nation. Tojo, a General, became Prime Minister during WWII. The victorious allies hanged him. He could be Petraeus's model.

Look for Petraeus to run for President in 2012. If he wins, he'll lead the nation like Tojo, who was probably responsible for the Pearl Harbor bombing--and Japan's subsequent defeat.

The military was also dominant in the late Roman Empire. That didn't do Romans much good against their enemies, the "Barbarians," however--even when they hired Barbarians to protect Rome against other Barbarians: See page: The Fall of Rome.

Politics, Economy: Does Anything Work?

The bank bailout and stimulus package worked--up to a point. While the former did rescue the banks, and the latter spared us the depths of the Great Depression, neither has "fixed" the economy.

The big banks made money, but mostly on speculation with the cheap (almost free) bailout money, but they haven't been lending enough to genuinely rescue the economy. In fact, there is a real danger that bank speculation could trigger a worse financial collapse, unless Congress passes laws empowering government to regulate the whole financial industry. Because of widespread American distrust of government, however, and because of intense bank lobbying, re-regulation of the finance industry is difficult to get through Congress (banks were much more regulated before the wave of deregulation that began with Carter and Reagan, and continued through Clinton and Bush administrations).

Further, the stimulus was too little. While some millions of jobs were saved, and something less than that were created, the number of jobs lost, and the number of jobs needed is far larger, so the stimulus limited the damage, but didn't go far enough. The stimulus also saved the housing market from collapse: it is slowly recovering, but many are still losing their homes to foreclosure, many of those due to job losses, many others because house values plummeted and mortgage holders were left "underwater," owing more than their houses were worth.

No wonder people are unhappy and grasp for "solutions," like the Tea Party movement. Ironically, the solutions offered: abolishing the Fed, going back to the gold standard, free marketeering, abolishing regulations already in place, would make things worse.

The gold standard would drastically reduce the money supply, which would destroy more jobs; further deregulation would permit more speculation by the banks, which may be why the tea party is so well-funded, but it would further reduce the money available for job creation. And budget-balancing would subtract still more.

The real problem (Dollars and Sense: May-June, 2010), is that the whole global trading and financial system is seriously out of whack: the dollar no longer works as the world's reserve currency, which requires the US as importer of last resort, a high dollar, imports of goods, exports of dollars and the destruction of US manufacturing. This creates huge trade deficits, consumer debt, high finance and high unemployment.

What is needed: regulate finance and reduce its importance, revive manufacturing (especially to combat climate change), an active government in the economy, a low dollar, not a high one, and a new international reserve unit to replace the dollar.

This might end America's imperial hegemony, but we've already gotten to the point where we can't afford it; it has destroyed the US economy. The jobs we most succeed in creating, wreak destruction world-wide. We'd be much better off as "just another country." Otherwise, we might end like the Assyrian Empire: brilliant, brutal and short.

US Empire, Inc.

My previous blog dealt with a video released by Wikileaks. The importance of a service like wikileaks has been underscored by the denials of Pentagon and pro-defense bloggers about the meaning of the Iraq helicopter video. Wikileaks' crucial role has also been demonstrated by the recent Appeals Court decision that the FCC doesn't have the power to enforce net neutrality.

Comcast, AT&T and Verizon all claim that net neutrality will not fairly recompense them for their services, that they need to be able to charge more for high band-width users, in order to adequately invest in continued improvements in the Internet.

Gee, 80% profits (for Comcast) aren't enough?

What really is at issue is: who controls the Internet. The FCC has been like the cop in the patrol car; nobody controls where you go, but you have to abide by the speed limits. In the case of the Internet, the FCC was attempting to insure that everyone had equal access.

The companies want control. Their spokespeople claim they wouldn't charge more except for high-bandwidth users, but if there is no cop on the beat, why wouldn't they charge more? After all, a corporation's officers are legally required to maximize profit.

So, if there is premium access, then those not paying the higher fees will end up getting lower quality (lower cost) services, or they could be blocked unless they pay more.

Providers could also block users if their content promotes ideas or policies that could threaten their bottom line. This brings us back to Wikileaks: the Iraq video would not be in the interest of any corporation which makes profits from our war efforts, since it has profoundly anti-war implications. With no cop on the beat, it could have been blocked.

The same might be said for certain candidates: anti-corporate positions could therefore become even more difficult to bring to public attention. Not only would they be handicapped by receiving no corporate money now that corporations can spend unlimited money directly on elections, but in addition, the carriers could block meaningful access to a campaign.

There are two ways out: one is for the FCC to find another way to regulate the Internet to insure net neutrality: it's exploring its options. The other is to pass net neutrality laws in Congress, but the opposition of the large cable providers meshes with anti-regulatory zeal, largely Republican, though other corporations, like Google and Yahoo might encourage pro-regulation Congress-people if they push back.

The Appeals Court decision is like the second of a one-two punch, the first being the Supreme Court ruling that corporations have free speech rights as "corporate persons."

This looks like a silent corporate coup. Forget about Democrats and Republicans: corporations are gaining control--unless we stop them. Goodbye democracy, goodbye the United States. Hello US Empire, Inc. Is Augustus waiting in the wings? Is her name Sarah Palin?