Greatness

For those of you who have been here before, you know I have a "love/hate" relationship with Tom Friedman's writings.  I frequently disagree with his opinion and sometimes think he's gone off the deep end.  But every once in a while, a column will resonate with me.

His column in today's NYT is one that I think is pretty accurate.  It's titled "Calling America: Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?" And you can read it here.  The thrust of the column is that we are in decline.  The rest of the world is questioning everything from our role as a world leader, to the government shutdown, to the healthcare debacle.  I think he makes some very good points and has some very astute observations.  I don't agree with everything he says in the article, but it's generally pretty good.  Here's the pull quote that really got my attention,  "how could the people who gave us Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, I.B.M., H.P. and Google not be able to build a workable health care website? I know it had five million users, but there are 48 million Indonesians on Facebook!"

I think that there is a lot of truth in this article.   We have huge problems, and for the first time in my life I just don't see a bright horizon as far as our ability to regain our place in the world.

From my perspective this all started when we decided to invade Iraq and go to war.  I truly believe that our leaders were acting on what they thought was credible information about WMD.  But they were wrong.  And not just GWB.  Everyone was wrong.  That war led to a view of us in the world as bully's.  Right or wrong, it was a war we didn't need to fight against a foe who was weaker, corrupt, and didn't pose a national security threat.  And we did it instead of finishing what we started in Afghanistan.   Everyone understood going after the perpetrators of 9/11 in Afghanistan.  There was worldwide support for that.  It was a coalition of forces against these seventh century assholes who killed over 3000 innocent Americans.  But it all got muddled.  I think we were very good at winning the battles but not so good at winning the war.  The people in charge really screwed it up...Rumsfeld, Bremer, Gen Franks, Gen Sanchez, Cheney...a lot of folks screwed it up.  The only thing that saved us in Iraq was the surge.  I give GWB lots of credit to go down that road.  And it proved to be successful.  Meanwhile Afghanistan has been an ongoing struggle.  But once we left Iraq, Afghanistan was winnable.  There was a strategy in place.  But then Obama set the timetable.  And that doomed any chance for success.  So now we are coming home with our tails between our legs.  The worlds greatest (or used to be greatest) military power slinking home.

The war(s) were contributory, but not the only thing.  In 2008 we elected a far left zealot to lead the country.  He has alienated and divided the country like no President before him.  He has stimulated a strong backlash by a loose group of people called the Tea Party.  These folks generally started as a revolt or protest against increased taxes.  Unfortunately many of these people have become zealots for a far right wing idealogy.  They have a large following and have put forth policies that are as far right as Obama is left.   But they have been able to get many people whom they sponsor elected.  So the polarization continues.

Like I said, I don't see it getting better anytime soon.  I keep thinking that people are going to wake up to Obama's emptiness.  All he does it talk.  There is absolutely no followup.  I don't know if he and his staff are totally incompetent, or they have some political agenda that believes stonewalling and lying are the way to get ahead.  The health care debacle is typical.  Lie, lie, lie and see what you can get away with.  We are now finding out how bad this whole thing is going to be.

The Tea Party people are just as bad.  Their tactics are stupid.  Shut down the government?  Please.  That is just dumb.  Defund the President's signature project?  No way.  But they press ahead.  They seem to not be able to understand that they may win a few battles, but they can't win the war.  There is no way that they can win.  Period.

So I'll go back to some earlier posts.  We have to find someone who can lead.  We have to find someone who can reach across the aisle.  We have to find someone who is not perfect to either side but is acceptable to the majority.  Don't know who that is.  But they better step up.  There is a vacuum to fill.

And to return to the beginning, we are increasing viewed as irrelevant by the rest of the world.  The simple truth is that we should be leading the world.  That we don't makes the world that much more dangerous.