So there were no responses to the Afghanistan question in yesterday's post -- fair enough, I dunno myself. Today we've got the issue of the dollar potentially
no longer being the basis for the price of a barrel of oil, and the question of what that will do to the value of our currency. My bet is that if so many countries have so much debt in dollars, wouldn't they want those dollars to be worth something? Or do I have it backwards...
In better U.S. news, some of our nation's biggest corporations are expressing their displeasure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's stance against climate change legislation by
quitting that organization.
Oh, and after being in seventh place last year, thanks to our new President (and, I would add, the more open-minded than expected democracy that elected him), we are once again
the most admired country in the world.
2 comments:
"Today we've got the issue of the dollar potentially no longer being the basis for the price of a barrel of oil."
It's only a matter of time 'til this happens, and it's bad news for the US of A.
As for Afghanistan, I have no opinion. On one hand, I think we should pull everybody out of Iraq, send 'em to AFGH and police every sq inch of the place until we clean it out (and find bin Laden).
On the other hand, the Russkies tried this and it's didn't go too well for them; also, generals making press leaks w/ dire warnings, and trying to squeeze the pres into sending more troops reminds me an awful lot of the middle stages of Vietnam.
We (the U.S.) are really good at beating an opposing army. However we are really bad at occupying that armies nation for a long time.
But really, historically, who is? If you don't have the hearts and minds of the majority / or the vocal types, occupation is a hard thing todo. Even when the goal really isn't occupation.
I believe right now, regardless of what you think of the reasons for going in, Iraq is the more important of the two missions. The goal is to create a stable government that will be a friend to the U.S., especially after we leave. Otherwise someone will come to power, and we probably will have to return sometime within the next century. (Depending on our dependency for oil.)
Stability in that region, is extremely important.
Afghanistan from an economic standpoint, has far less value. I'm not sure I agree with a surge policing that region. Geographically you really can't march armies up and down the caves your searching, also is 40,000 enough to even accomplish that? Some analysts predict we could be in Afghanistan for over 20 years, does the U.S. have the resolve todo that? Especially when it costs more than double to keep 1 troop in Afghanistan than it does in Iraq.
However, we keep saying that Afghanistan is the front for the war on terror. Is that still the case? How do we not know that they haven't crossed over the Pakistan border?
What is our actual objective in Afghanistan? Better yet what is the White House's objective? I think I'm in agreement with Biden on this one, UAV + Special Forces mission. Spend the money that we would spend on troop movement and launch a string of satellites over the Hindu Kush, lob some missiles or deploy the special forces when we see people are up to no good.
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