Left Turn Switchbacks

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Americas Secret War - George Friedman

My Dad gave me this one to read a while ago. It’s circa 2004 so alot has come to light recently that would challenge many assumptions made in this book, but I do think many points it makes are valid.

It studies both Iraq and Afghanistan in relation to the war on terror, reaction to 9/11 and the Bush administration’s final solution for the Middle East. 

The chapters on Afghanistan I found to be most interesting. Afghanistan seems to be somewhat an enigma for western politics to deal with. Certainly there were mistakes made in the strategy selected to deal with the Taleban and Bin Laden, but perhaps the biggest mistake made was the mere assumption that the US could come close to succeeding in Afghanistan.

The Russians had proven that it couldnt be done, even with 300,000 troops. What were the US thinking?

One thing this book proves is that the US has embarked upon two big missions in the middle east and has failed miserably at every level, planning, strategy, implementation and achieving the goals they set out to.

However I believe George Friedman has made a fundamental error in his summation of why the US invaded Iraq and why it wishes to maintain its presence there. The ‘elephant in the room’ as it were, is of course Oil, which George conveniently mentions in passing only a few times. His belief is that the US invaded Iraq to place pressure on Saudi Arabia for its support of radical islamic elements.

To believe this is to buy the line that the US went into these conflicts, primarily, with the innocent motive of wanting to wipe out terrorism. While partially this accounts for some of the motive, it must be by far a much smaller consideration than that of access to cheap oil.

By its obvious focus on the middle east, this book has probably overlooked some of the wider global factors at play here. Im sure the US did want to place pressure on Saudi Arabia, but invade a country and commit yourself to a long term conflict because of it?

For me, this book suggested at least one path forward for the US in Afghanistan in particular. Stop trying to take the fight to the Taleban and go after Al-Qaeda properly. The Taleban as a government are no worse than the Saud’s, negotiate a ceasefire, let them go about their day in exchange for permission to operate against Al-Qaeda in the highlands. 

Its not that I support the Taleban’s reinstatement, but lets compare thier fundamentalist rule to that of Saudi Arabia. Can you tell me the US is not engaging in some kind of hypocritical foreign policy bullshit? 

If they kept their eyes on the prize they could have dealt Al-Qaeda a much harder blow. By its very nature, Al-Qaeda is probably undefeatable, but if the US is serious about counter-terrorism, they need to focus better. 

3/5 

Check out the size of my surplus baby.

Much is made in political mileage of the budget surplus. As a percentage of GDP where do you think Australia ranks in the size of the surplus?

Bear in mind we are in the  middle of a mining boom, like several other nations such as Norway and Canada…

35th.

Right under Algeria. Much lower than Khazakstan, New Zealand, Spain, Canada, Iran, & Thailand.

Why im voting Green

I hope people think about their vote carefully before they dish it out on Saturday, and I am quite looking forward to seeing the results of this federal election. I will be voting Green in the senate and Green in the House of Reps. For the reasons I will spell out below.

Firstly, my explanation for not voting Liberal. There are many many reasons you might not wish to vote for the Liberals this time around, however I need to name only one to justify my refusal to give them my support. Iraq.

I refuse to support any government, left or right who would wage war on the basis of stealing a countries resources from under them. For those on the right who believe that the notion of “war for oil” is a crazy left wing conspiracy theory, they need only watch A Crude Awakening to know that no one understands the idea of Peak Oil better than the right wing. Brendon Nelson let the cat out of the bag earlier this year by claiming the war was to secure Australia’s energy future. He was right. But my moral and ethical compass cannot let me lend support to a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands.

Simply put, nothing much will change in reality even with Labor in charge of the helm, but I can’t rightly vote for a government who took us there to begin with. They abandoned principle on the basis of short term gain, which is unforgivable.

The issue of Iraq may not be at the forefront of the election campaign (largely because both major parties barely differ on the subject), but I believe the Liberal party has helped to reduce our long term standing with countries around the world for involving itself in an illegal invasion and occupation. How can any proud Australian stand for such a thing?

If you want a secondary list of Liberal failures/disasters as reasons not to vote for them: AWB, Workchoices and the undermining of legitimate union activity, children overboard, Tampa crisis, the Dr Haneef saga, David Hicks, lack of ministerial accountability, marginal seat pork barrelling, the disastrous technical colleges policy, long term refugee detention, the cost blow out on NT Aboriginal intervention, third world conditions for Aboriginals, refusal to say sorry for the stolen generation, promising to keep interest rates low, excessive tax cuts fuelling inflation, ignoring the Reserve Bank, the denial of Federalism whilst pushing a Federalist agenda, RU486, chaplains in schools, buying the christian conservative agenda, education funding cuts, HECS fee’s doubling, the destruction of the Australian Dream of home ownership, middle class welfare handouts without means testing, undermining public school funding to the advantage of private schools, Murray-Darling policy written on a bar napkin, low level of aid funding per capita, Tasmanian forests policy (admittedly this is the same as the ALP’s), climate change ineptitude, not embracing renewable energy, outlawing sedition, anti-terror laws & watering down of civil liberties, selling uranium to non-signatories of the NPT, nuclear reactors, spectacular defence spending failures (joint strike fighters, dodgy helicopters & tanks), refusal to grant same sex couples with financial rights, lack of decent broadband infrastructure and Tony Fucking Abbott.

Equally there are reasons not to vote for Labor, but the ones which stand out for me are their Tasmanian forests policy (photocopying Liberal policy is not a good look), and their recent reversal on the no new uranium mines decision. I do not buy this bullshit about unions and interest rates, and neither should anyone really. Legitimate union activity is not something to be feared, it should be embraced as it is in the long term interest of ALL workers, not just those who are part of the movement. There’s not a person working in Australia today that can truly say they owe nothing to the union movement.

Provided we see some fiscal tightening in Rudd’s government, I suspect that interest rates will be managed well. Since 2004, the Liberals have been handing out tax cuts and welfare payments like madmen and thus we have the situation today whereby interest rates have risen 6 times, probably cancelling out some/all of the tax cuts. Regardless of whether there were high rates under Labor in the past, todays economic environment is a very different one. It will require fiscal responsiblity, but there is nothing to suggest that the many economics graduates on the Labor front bench (including one PHD) can’t keep it under control.

But why vote Green? Well I do not think the ALP have done a good job on several policy fronts, the one which angers me most is the environment. And if Peter Garrett’s “joke” rings true that they will change it all once they get into power, then I can, in a twisted sort of sense, applaud that. The Green’s have by far the best environmental policy as you would expect, somewhat at the extreme end of the spectrum, but I think their encouragement of renewable energy and the decentralisation of the power grid would be a huge step in the right direction to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. At the end of the day, it barely matters what the Greens policy is in the House of Reps because they will never govern. But the thrust of their policy outlines determine their behaviour in the senate, which a big factor to think about.

The Greens will hold the ALP to a greater level of environmental accountability in the senate. I believe no one individual party should lay claim to both houses, and if I want the ALP to govern, then I need to vote for someone else in the senate. The Greens most accurately fit the progressive left bill that I can identify with.

In the House of Rep’s I cannot rightly vote for a party who’s environmental policy I am against, therefore I must protest vote against a direct ALP vote, instead offer my first preference to the Greens. This was not the case as late as September, I was initially going to vote for the ALP, but when Rudd went to Tassie and ditched Latham’s unpopular (but quite right) forest policy, it put me right off them. I’ve been firmly in the Greens camp ever since. Having said that I will be more than happy for Kim Wilkie to retain his seat in Swan, and for the Labor party to hold power.

A prediction for Saturday? 79 seats for the ALP in the House of Reps. Greens to hold the balance in the senate with the ALP and Greens taking a chunk out of the Liberals. That translates to a 52.5% TPP vote for the ALP, lower than the current Reuter’s multi-poll average of 55%.

I wait with bated-breath.