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Random Thoughts
Blunder Bush
The WMD to use to shoot
One's Self in the Foot
by
Gaurang Bhatt, MD
I’m
boy king blunderbush
My brain is pickled mush
With my WMDs I can shoot
Only me myself in the foot
Which I keep in my mouth
World over, north to south.
A blunderbuss
is defined as an instrument of violent intimidation that shoots off from
its muzzle in multiple directions without aim or target. What a close
fit with the current American president! Shortly after taking office he
screamed from rooftops the new security doctrine of America. His
sensible predecessors had strived for and ensured America’s primacy and
discreetly indulged in amoral interference all around the world to
perpetuate American hegemony, except when countered by the Soviets. His
father had actually invaded Panama and Iraq and established the dominant
unipolar American status. The inept incompetent had to blow his own
trumpet and disturb the peace of the world and awaken the sleeping
muezzins who reciprocated the screams from minarets the world over.
Not being
satisfied with a general notice to the world that it would not allow the
emergence of a competing power like the former Soviet Union and that
America would take preemptive military action including the use of
nuclear weapons to thwart the ambitions of any such nation, he then
singled out Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an axis of evil. His cabal of
chicken hawks who believe that hubris can compensate for intelligence,
strategy and policy, rushed into Afghanistan and Iraq without adequate
troops and postwar plans.
The unwillingness to commit troops and risk potential casualties led to
the use of the Northern Alliance and drug warlords as surrogates. The
net result is lack of meaningful reconstruction due to the skimming of
donor money by corrupt Afghan leaders, crooked contractors and bogus
NGOs which pay expatriates exorbitant salaries while paying Afghans less
than five dollars a day. All this, while relying on a double dealing
Pakistan has led to the resurgence of the Taliban given sanctuary in the
tribal belt. The dissatisfied common Afghans are further incensed by
intrusive home raids oblivious of Islamic customs, indiscriminate aerial
bombardment, evidence of inhuman torture of prisoners, ridicule of the
prophet and desecration of the Koran. The blood and treasure costs and
the American frustration in the absence of instant gratification is
leading to the unraveling of Afghanistan, destined to revert to a failed
state and a refuge for drug dealers and terrorists.
A similar blunder of insufficient occupation troops led to the looting,
criminal rampage and native and foreign insurgency in Iraq. Once again
scared troops full of hate became trigger happy and shot up civilians
and friendly Europeans. Their impotence to prevent deaths of colleagues
by improvised explosive devices led to ethnic hatred, name calling and
intrusive home raids and prison torture. The indiscriminate killing
fueled the insurgency and widened the internal divisions within Iraqis.
The backing of ethnic and religious factions by surrounding neighbors
with divergent vested interests will fragment Iraq and make it a haven
for terrorists just like Somalia.
It is bad enough that the neo-con foolishness has led to our being
amBushed in the Middle East, but what is worse is our being hoodwinked
in Korea and further antagonizing Iran, China and Russia. China like
Pakistan has played a double game as far as Korea is concerned. While
China would prefer a non-nuclear Korea, it is not threatened by a
nuclear North Korea. It has publicly pretended to facilitate
negotiations while definitely refusing to use viable threats of economic
deprivation to make North Korea toe the line. There are some experts who
feel that China has secretly encouraged North Korea’s intransigence,
thus throwing America into a hole that it cannot dig out of.
The foolish obstinacy of the Bushed administration has led to rejection
of direct talks and a mutually acceptable compromise. The same folly is
being repeated with Iran by refusing direct negotiation. The obstinate
folly of the idiots at the helm is that they keep making the same
mistakes again and again with the hope of a different outcome. This
total lack of plasticity of behavior puts them significantly below the
sea slug Aplysia on the evolutionary ladder. Eric Kandel won the Nobel
Prize in Medicine by showing that the slug can modify its responses at a
single synapse after repeated false alarms of blowing at its gills. Thus
it has the memory to remember that repeated alarms are false and modify
the response at a single synapse. What this tells about the number of
synapses in the brains of the current administration and their memory
capacity, I leave the reader to figure out.
In the past when trade deficits with Japan ballooned, America indulged
in Japan bashing. The Japanese have an unusual psyche. They will
ruthlessly and mercilessly bully the weak as in their imperial era, but
will forever meekly respect the one who licks them as America did. The
Chinese are pragmatic but also more proud and have vowed "Never Again".
This explains their violent suppression of Tiananmen Square, threats to
nuke Los Angeles and firing missiles over Taiwan. As we all know America
is now dependent on China to fund its current account deficit and allow
the consumer to indulge in profligate spending to keep the American
economy going by keeping interest rates low and not bursting the housing
bubble created by Greenspan. Under these circumstances it is showing
cavalier foolhardiness to gratuitously insult the Chinese leadership.
This is precisely what the Bush league did by refusing to grant Hu a
state visit, allowing him to be heckled on the White House lawn without
removing the protester, manhandling him on and off stage by Bush and
holding hearings on China’s human rights violations throughout his
visit. The White House protocol chief needs to educate the ignorant
shrub that it is patronizingly demeaning to put an arm on the back of a
visiting dignitary especially if he is shorter and doubly insulting to
pat him on the back unless the parties concerned are gay lovers. Hu left
America and had his revenge by visiting Saudi Arabia to begin weaning it
off from America’s teats and further diversifying China’s energy supply.
There is talk that China is going to give Iran full membership in the
SCO and thus create a powerful bloc to oppose America and expel its
influence from energy rich Central Asian states, the Grand Chessboard
designated by Brzezinski.
The shortsighted American manipulated and funded revolutions are being
reversed in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Thus the annoyance caused
to Russia by meddling in its near abroad and expanding NATO to its front
steps by including Poland and other former East European satellites of
the Warsaw Pact has yielded no lasting benefits. On top of this, in
rants by Cheney about Russian energy policies to expand its power are
vacuously criticized despite America following similar behavior with
military violence in Iraq and possibly Iran. This led to a sharp
rejoinder by Putin exposing American hypocrisy and increasing Russian
animosity. Russia is ganging up with China in the SCO and locking
America out of Central Asia. Kazakhstan will not leave the Russian orbit
because of its large ethnic Russian population. Russia and China are
backing corrupt tyrants in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan just as America
does the same in Azerbaijan. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are too poor and
dependent on Russia economically and too close to China geographically
to jump to an American orbit.
Even the right of center, new German Chancellor rejected America’s point
of view and signed agreements wit Russia to further solidify their
energy relationship. She and the British equivalent of the Attorney
General publicly chastised America and asked it to close the shameful
Guantanamo Gulag. Jack Straw, the British Foreign minister was replaced
for objecting to a military solution to the Iran nuclear problem. Russia
and China blocked the use of Chapter7 in the UN Security Council to
invoke sanctions against Iran and sunk America’s plan to prevent Iran
from going nuclear.
Finally in
our own backyard, we have newly alienated Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay,
Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Cuba has been a thorn for half a
century. There is a civil war in Colombia. Even Chile and Brazil are
looking towards China. Never in the history of great powers has a
blunderbush been used to shoot one’s own nation in the foot. Now we have
a burning bush and America kneeling in prayer not out of respect or
love, but in desperation for relief as the stock market and dollar are
collapsing which I predicted.
May 14,
2006
Top
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Random Thoughts
The Week of May 14, 2006
A Two-Party System is Achievable by Rajinder
Puri
India's Congress Party's Divisive Fissures
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
Blunder Bush: The WMD to use to shoot One's Self in
the Foot by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Lurid Drama of Proselytism after 1947 by V.
Sundaram
The Rite of Passage to the New World Order by
Arvind Pandey
Office of Profit by Usha Kakkar
'Raw is Training 600 Baluchis in Afghanistan' :
Mushahid Hussain by MH Ahsan
Who can get Permanent Seats in the UN Security
Council? by TA Ramesh
Let us Not Redraw the Geography by VK Joshi
Emotions and Elections by Dr. Prasenjit
Maiti
Religion Vs Reason by Humera Afridi
Vastu Orientation and Topography by Niranjan Babu
Bangalore
Care for the Glittering Pair by Dr. Savitha
Suri
A New Indian Woman? by Kusum Choppra
Pulling the Right Strings by Neeta Lal
Asian Development Bank : No.1 Public Enemy? by
Linda Chhakchhuak
Mistaken Love : A True Story by P. Mohan
Chandran
Song of the Wound(ed) by by RS Krishna Moorthy
& NS Murty
Action Plan for Sita by Sandeep Uppuluri
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai
You are a Buffalo by Ravi Pipal
Robots in Human Life by Ruchi
Gupta
Guide to Easy Parenting by Garima Gupta
Vastu: Directional Influences on Human Affairs
A Review by VS Kalyanaraman
The Thirst for Life's Secrets by Raghvendra
Singh
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