War

A recent news item seems to think that the Afghan war is nothing more than an extension of the almost constant war between India and Pakistan.  Geographically this makes sense.  The Taliban are people sent in to infiltrate from Pakistan.  This is all quite logical.

Of course that means we are fighting on the Indian side while heavily subsidizing the Pakistani military.  I think it is best to stay out of things you really don't understand at all.

This also probably means Al-Qaeda is an arm of the Pakistani military as well. Remind me again what we are doing there.

Meddling

I was entertained by the exchange between the Pakistani ambassador and Hilary Clinton. As everyone knows, we have been heavily subsidizing the Pakistani military for decades. The only reason we would do this is so that they could support our military objectives. Why else? We are giving them money because they are so much nicer than others? Give me a break. We are giving them money so they can invade India? I don't think so.

So the US has gotten a bit bold with them and pointed out that our enemies have been living and operating with impunity within the borders of Pakistan. We would like it if they would please use some of this money we have been giving them to hunt down Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

So the ambassador said we were "interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan."

Cute. So Hilary says they may of course feel free to just refuse to take the money. You don't like the strings, don't take the money. Easy decision. Love it. That's my girl.

health care

I admit that I am puzzled by the debate on health care in the US. I understand clearly why everybody needs health care. I don't understand at all why anyone needs health care insurance. Just make them all civil service employees, assign them pay rates and get on with it.

Iran

I think they won't be able to blame this one on anyone.

It's a good thing I'm not president

If Ahmadinejad had told me to stop meddling in their internal affairs, I would have replied, "Fuck you." This is only one of a long list of reasons.

Emigration Policy

It should be possible to calculate America's labor needs and extrapolate immigration requirements based on this calculation. This sounds like a task for the labor department. It would be my guess that any legitimate such calculation would show that we have plenty of high end people. Plenty of people would love to run the Bank of America. It's the low end that needs people. Why have an emotional breakdown over the fact that immigrants legal or illegal fill a real requirement?

It's true that I have been completely unable to see this issue. I want to know what the problem is before I start proposing solutions.

Iran

It's hard to know what to say about this. It strongly resembles the overthrow of the Shah, and is probably run by the same people.

It meets our ideals in a mysterious way. We once held that the power of a government derives from the consent of the governed. What happens if they rise up and say that they do not consent? Do I think this means we are required to go in and rescue them? We have no idea if either side represents anything we would be for.

I think it must mean that large portions of the country don't like what their country has become any more than they liked what the Shah made it. The impression is that extraordinary force is being used to stop entirely peaceful demonstrations. Such forceful suppression of dissent can only mean dictatorship. Why is an Islamic dictator superior to a civil dictatorship? For me it's a meaningless distinction, but it isn't my country.

It isn't my country. We did the same things here when demonstrations we didn't like filled our streets.

It reminds me of the time of the Iraq invasion when I thought seriously of emigrating to Canada. I'd like to live somewhere where the country I lived in didn't think it had to decide about every goddamn thing that went on in the world. It's just not my country.