Why sticking our noses in the affairs of the Third World is a bad idea

Since it's Sunday morning [early too! Ed.] I'll start with a text. This is from the chapter entitled "Recovery", in Butterfly Mind, by Patrick Brown (Anansi 2008). (More about the author and the book later.)

Intervention almost never works out as predicted, and it is almost never executed with sufficient thoroughness and commitment. The decision to intervene, either for humanitarian reasons or because a regime has become intolerable, are often made haphazardly, and the results almost always are disappointing. Those decision deserve care and attention proportional the blood and treasure lost when bad decisions are made.

I have been in Afghanistan many times since the Taliban left. I have watched a growing number of foreign nation-builders and peacekeepers lose their lives in the dusty hills of a country that once again produces 90 percent of the world's heroin.

NATO countries that are still willing to provide troops insist on à la carte deployment, picking and choosing where their forces are deployed and what they do. Countries that have put their troops in harm's way, like Canada and Britain, are naively stirring up a hornet's nest. Pacifying Afghanistan and improving its living standards rapidly would have taken much larger numbers of well-equipped troops, and an intensive and expensive development effort.

Those words were written in 2008, before the US-led "intervention" in Afghanistan had officially failed, yet the author refers to it (in the last quoted sentence) in the conditional past -- "would have taken". The conditions for success were never met, perhaps never could have been met. Six years after Patrick Brown wrote those words, even the greatest apologists for Obama's war have no choice but to describe it as a failure.

Thus endeth the lesson... Sad to say, the lesson has still not been learned by the Prez and other Leaders of the Free World (TM). If it were otherwise, why would be, at this very moment, making the same mistakes in Iraq and "the Levant"?

The failure of Western intervention in Afghanistan was hardly unique. During the 1980s, Patrick Brown was a foreign correspondent, reporting on the collapse of Communism, revolutions, wars and humanitarian disasters in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lebanon, East Timor, Burma, Cambodia and Korea. Western meddling, he observes, never solved the problems it set out to. Too frequently, our intervention only made things worse. As an interviewee told him, "WE have to solve our problems by ourselves."

There is more to Butterfly Mind than a potted history of Western failures in the third world. Patrick Brown is a recovering alcoholic. He speculates on the link between alcoholism and journalism. Perhaps journalism drives one to drink. Or perhaps alcoholics become journalists because it's a natural métier for garrulous drunks.

With professional help, Mr. Brown won -- or is winning -- his battle with the bottle. The beginning of his recovery coincided with his move in 1989, to China, where he now makes his home. In Butterfly Mind, he skillfully interweaves his personal story with his observations of Western engagement (to use the latest buzzword) with the Third World, and draws comparisons and parallels with the policies and politics of Communist China.

He writes of the efforts of several Chinese "freedom fighters", including several of those profiled in Out of Mao's Shadow, reviewed here a month ago. He concludes that if change -- regime change and/or social change -- is to come to China, the Chinese will have to bring about that change by themselves, without "help" from the West.

Patrick Brown wishes the Chinese good luck. Walt agrees and extends the same wish to the writer himself. And Walt recommends Butterfly Mind -- good reading as we approach the Chinese New Year.

Majority of Americans think US should mind its own business overseas

The American government's interventionist foreign policies are wrong-headed, counter-productive and just plain stupid. Ron Paul told you so. Walt told you so. But the Bushes, pater et filius, the Clintons and Hussein Obama told you the opposite. Who ya gonna believe?

To judge by the results of the last election -- was it only a year ago? -- the Merkin people believed the politicians and the establishment. But today comes a sign that the scales are finally falling off the eyes of Joe the Plumber.

Today, for the first time in almost four decades of polling, a study by the Pew Research Center (in association with the Council on Foreign Relations) suggests that the majority of Americans believe the US plays a less important and powerful role in the world than it did ten years ago.

As the chart at the right shows, most people now believe America should “mind its own business internationally”.

The findings of the Pew poll suggest Americans think their country is now less respected abroad, bucking a trend in which Americans believed their reputation had recovered since the Prez Obama was elected. Funny how giving him a Nobel prize for doing nothing except being black would give that impression. But the penny has dropped, and impressions of how the US is perceived under Obama are now, broadly, as negative as they were in the final days of the administration of Bush the Younger.

Although there is a growing desire for the development of stronger trade and business links abroad, it seems that Americans want their leaders to adopt a less interventionist approach to solving the world's political and social problems. It's time, many people think, to stop trying to be the world's policeman and concentrate on fixing the many things that are broken in the Land of the Free Lunch.

But will America's political leaders listen? Is the Pope Catholic? [The answer to both questions is meant to be "NO". Ed.]

Krazai Afghan president calls NATO mission "failure"

Maybe Afghan president Mohammed Karzai is not so crazy after all. Maybe he's just telling it the way it is. Or maybe he's trimming his sails to run with the prevailing wind. The krazai guy is quoted in British Forces News today as calling the US-led "NATO" mission to save his country from the Taliban "a failure". Who can argue with that?

You might ask, a failure of what? Walt will tell you. Western intervention in Afghanistan -- for which the Excited States of America must take the lion's share [eagle's share? Ed.] of the blame -- is a failure of foreign policy, a failure of interventionism, a failure of modern military technology, a failure born of ignorance of other cultures and religions... I could go on. How much time have I got? [That's enough failure. Ed.]

If that's not enough to make Dubya and Tony Bliar choke on their cornflakes this morning, Karzai now says he intends to negotiate a power-sharing deal with the Taliban. "I will only be letting the camel's nose half-way in the tent," says the krazai guy, "and I'm sure they will abide by their Islamic promise not to take over everything." Kula haga mumkin!

Walt is only going to say this one more time... today. The rest of the world (particularly the Middle East) doesn't want American-style democracy. You don't have to look beyond the current standoff in Washington to understand why. And there's no reason why America should be the world's policeman. Particularly when it has proven incapable of doing so.

Walt says: forget about the Middle East! It's a sandpit full of heathen savages. Let them duke it out until Mohammed returns... or however the world is supposed to end, according to the Quran. Meanwhile, the money (and lives) saved can be usefully employed right here at home.

Walt's solution to the threat of terrorism

Walt would like to see the latest annual report of the Department of Homeland Security. (It may be available online somewhere, but Ed. is too lazy to look. Or maybe not. Maybe it's "classified", or even "top secret".) Walt would like to know how many terrorists -- imported or domestic -- they've apprehended in the last year. Walt would like to know how they spend billions of taxpayers' dollars and yet are unable to prevent incidents like the Boston Marathon bombings.

Here is my offer to the Department. For just a small fraction of one year's allocation -- let's say 10% -- I will show you how to drastically reduce the likelihood of further attacks on America and Americans.

Later...
Ed. tells me I should present my plan for free, for the common good, and trust the Prez to compensate me once the benefit of my foolproof strategy is realized. OK then...

What America should do, to get the Islamic extremists off our backs, is leave them alone.

Follow Ron Paul's advice* and put an end to our foreign adventurism and entanglements. Bring the troops home. All of them. Let the USA get out of the Middle East and the ROTW entirely. Let the Shites and Sunnies and Wasabis fight each other, if they get off on that kind of thing, and good luck to them.

Do I hear objections? Yes, you wrapped in the Stars and Stripes... "Americans can't run from a fight!" I hear you bray. My dear patriot, Walt is not talking about running from a fight. Walt is talking about running to a fight!

If America is attacked, certainly she must defend herself. But there has been no attack on the landmass of the USA in nearly 200 years. [Don't mention the War of 1812! Ed.] It's the bellicose United States that keeps invading such threats -- to "world peace", not America directly -- as Grenada, Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Libya [That's enough. We get it. Ed.]

Another cavil? "What about the security of our [sic] oil supply?", asks the gentleman from Texas. "What if there isn't enough gas for my Hummer?"

Dear guzzler, do you really believe that Iran or Iraq or Libya, if left to themselves, would refuse to sell any more oil to their biggest customer? And even if they did, there are other sources. Canada, for instance, has all kinds of oil it would be happy to ship south if the econazis would cease their sky-is-falling squawking about the Keystone pipeline. Getting oil is never going to be a problem for the USA. (Lifetime pct .980.)

So there you have it, gentle readers. Leave them alone and they'll stay home. And Americans can stop living in fear. You're welcome.

* Recommended reading: "Ron Paul to John Kerry: Foreign Interventionism Bankrupts America and Turns the World Against Us".