punditman says...
Punditman is not sure why any student would want to study US foreign policy these days because the course could easily be completed in a couple of lectures. That is if the right prof. is lecturing. Or the student could just survey the internet for a couple of hours to get the ugly truth.
Undoubtedly these courses need to fill the time somehow (commercials are probably the next step in university lectures, just like anywhere else you venture these days outside of your already heavily mediated head space). In any case, punditman assumes these course still contain the obligatory, redundant drivel about the machinations of realists, idealists, triangular diplomacy, and other flopsam and jetsom (yawn), most of which avoids the fundamental point concerning American statecraft: namely, the essence of American foreign policy is not difficult to understand because it is based primarly on elite control, corporate profit, war-making and war-preparing and has rarely changed in substantive ways over the centuries and decades regardless of who the boogeyman is (natives, nationalists, Communists, Islamists, etc.) This goes back to the days of Mark Twain around when the US began its fateful path towards imperial power. Twain knew a thing or two about the corruptions of power and money and wasn't afraid to call it as he sees it. The new posthumous autobiography of Twain is no doubt a great read in this regard.
In more recent times, the same old pattern has emerged from country to country: Support a dictator with money, arms and well wishes for years and years until the people finally rebel. Then preach "stability" while pretending to support people power all the while maneuvering behind the scenes to install your next puppet either overtly or covertly.
It reminds punditman of the following lyrics from "Lives in the Balance," by Jackson Browne (a great American):
And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interests run
On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
This article by Philip Giradi, pretty much sums up Punditman's view of the whole scene unfolding in Egypt and how it relates to US foreign policy. It would be nice if the United States lived up to its rhetoric about democracy for once and stopped interfering in other people's countries and put the will of the people above that of elite interests. Then they could actually say and do the right things. Punditman is not holding punditman's breath because punditman does not want to die.
