One of the problems about the claim of the US being “the lone superpower” is that the claim is patently false. While it’s true we’ve got a hell of a lot of nukes, what we don’t have is an infrastructure to speak of (focusing our entire economy on service and nonskilled labor for the last decade and a half has pretty well assured that), nor the possibility of supporting a long-term offensive — as any conventional battle will surely be.
The moronic saber-rattling going on between Iran and (hey, let’s face it) the White House — two religiously addled idiots bleating at one another over the strenuous objections of pretty much all their fellow countrypersons — is one obvious example of what happens when a cretin is told, over and over again, that the US is a “superpower”. We simply are not. The overstrained military is struggling in Afghanistan and Iraq; a war on two fronts is a known precursor to disaster; a third front would leave our national offensive (and, by extension, defensive) capabilities in tatters. Presumably any “Commander in Chief” versed in history no deeper than the Napoleonic wars would know that.
The only thing we had going for us was the “coalition of the willing” — and that has taken another serious blow this weekend, as Australia’s begun pulling its troops out of Iraq.
Why now? Because Australia just had some elections, and a few die-hard Bushies bit the dust, that’s why. It’s analogous to the US midterm elections that have terrified Republicans in recent months. Supporters of Il Duce the Retard are beginning to see the headstones capping their political careers, and — just like most dupes — they end up taking the anonymous fall with damned little to speak of for their years of self-serving public “service”.
Best damn thing to happen in a while, I think.
The problem is that the belief in “sole superpowerhood” almost guarantees no détente. As long as we continue to assert ourselves, as long as we continue to bully and cajole, as long as we continue to ignore our part as components in a larger, worldwide civilization (such as, for instance, refusing to agree to a ban on clusterbombs), as long as we effectively behave in a way similar to a spoiled four-year-old who wants a lollipop and is prepared to kick, shriek and blubber until he gets it, we can expect to continue to be abandoned by nations which otherwise have been allies.
It’s no fun to stand alone, but that’s precisely what’s going to happen to us, and we’ll have nowhere to lay the blame but on ourselves.
But still we struggle with immoderation. Hillary Clinton still doesn’t see she’s out, and still doesn’t see how very mistrustful many people (including women) are of her obsessive, power-grabbing personality.
Still we see religious nutjobs attempting to wrest control from centrist and moderate bases, as with the new campaign by the National Abstinence Education Association to raise $1 million to promote the thoroughly-discredited notion that teaching abstinence-only to teenagers is the only valid, viable approach to sex education in this country.
This is as dangerous and inane a notion as suggesting Earth is flat (or a mere 6,000 years old); or that we can fight and win in Iran just as we’re not doing in Iraq or even Afghanistan; or that internecine conflict in the only party that we have left which might be a viable option for change is going to be of benefit to anyone, even — especially — the aggressor.
What he hell has happened to humility? What has happened to respect for others, to the notion that while we might disagree, we can at least share the same land? In our national blight of vanishing self-control, is our impulse-driven consumerism a cause, or a symptom?
Is there such a thing as a national intervention program? Because someone needs to sit the US down and say, “Look, there are some serious problems here; you’re drunk on power, you can’t get enough, you’re selfish and rude, you’re losing touch with reality on a daily basis, you keep hurting everyone in reach — even the ones who love you — and unless this stops, you’re going to find yourself alone, and eventually you’re going to wind up dead in the gutter.”
At this rate, the only question will be how many others we’ll end up taking down with us first.
