Some days I worry that the USA and by extension the Western world has become the evil empire. We know all the worst of the Soviet Union. Yet its not inconceivable that on a human level it was more sympathetic to the human condition than the Western World today. In the USSR everyone knew that dissent was a one way ticket to someplace even more unpleasant. I hope not to get off track but in China today its much the same way. The Chinese will put up with a lot, but you never critique the Emperor.
President Obama inherited a chalice not only poisoned but so full of leaks the dosage was to low to kill him. No president since FDR has been tasked with so many challenges. I want to be clear, Obama only faces the economic risk, not the existential threat of a competent ruthless nation.
Economically its a mixed bag. No one would disagree he has stabilised the patient. The question is is this a long term cure? A sustainable life cycle?
I would say no. America with a white picket fence is not even close to walking.
Credit must be given to President Obama for facing down the Military Industrial Complex. For a time he kept them from establishing a permanent base in Iraq. He made conditions in Afghanistan that even the Military Industrial Complex will not back. When ISIS was invented he said we are not going to war against a Bob Dylan song and has stuck so far to his guns.
History may record his greatest moment as the release of the CIA torture file. If torture worked I would be all for it. President Obama has revealed to the world that it is as effective a tool of intelligence as blood letting is as a medical procedure.
History has a history of great tortures. Somehow demented people end up in the intelligence arm of society. I would rather die than torture someone, no matter how evil they had become. Yes I would easily put a bullet to the head(of evil), but in my world that's murder, and I would expect to be tried and convicted and serve any sentence society projected upon that dead.
Best practises my friends, that's the way forward, not gut instincts like torture works. As much as I love 24 I can distinguish that a TV series about a super human spy is not a reality in the complex world we inhabit. I would point to another fantastic creative work. Zulu Dawn has a torture element, the indigenous people laid a great beating on Great Britain by using torture against them.
Torture must be a hardwired application running in our lizard brain. Is there no
one who can remove this from our society permanently?
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