Just Another Spoke on the Wheel of Death
(2 May, 2008)

Ah, more of the same: politicians acting like they know and understand history, the concept of liberty, or the role of government intended by the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

The War on Terror has taken us back into Somalia. On Thursday, U.S. warplanes bombed a village in that country, allegedly killing some top al-Qa'ida brass in the process--not to mention 30 other people. Civilians are often killed--more often than the bad guys, actually--in strikes such as this. In Somalia, particularly, the USG has been bombing various targets for at least the last year-and-a-half. The USG supports the current Somali government. Most Somalis do not.

And round and round we go.

The War on Terror is a non-interventionist's nightmare. Whereas before the world was made up of various nation-states who rotated in and out of both ally and enemy slots, now the enemy is an ideology, a combination of groups spread out over dozens, perhaps hundreds, of countries, made up of thousands, tens of thousands, of people. It means we drop bombs in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia. It means our troops are engaged across the globe, their boots on the ground within the borders of over a hundred sovereign nations.

The ironic thing is that this is precisely what started everything in the first place.

It was meddling, foreign meddling, and involvement through arms aid, military training, troop presence, political pressure, bribes (foreign aid), the backing of a dictator here, a tyrant there--in other words, the weaving of a vastly complicated web that no policymaker could really understand, much less make predications about. And now the unintended consequences of installing Shahs and bombing buildings and stationing troops and supplying arms and propping up militarists and training guerrillas have led us to...what? Change the flawed foreign policy that led us here?

Nope. On the contrary, it's business as usual in Washington. Maybe it's too late now, I don't know. Maybe it's too late to get out--we've made a world of a mess, possibly trying to be the good guys (it doesn't really matter), and now we're stuck.

Still, no one's tried to change our foreign policy. We're still at it, backing this regime here, opposed to that regime there, funding these guys, fighting those guys, arming Group A, bombing Group B, financing Group C, etc.

Maybe we should break this down into mathematical terms. It's really quite simple, and the Founders certainly understood this. Washington and Jefferson were quite vehement about it. So let's try to make this easy.

Here we go:

foreign interventionism = F
the making of many enemies = E
a steady buildup of hatred = H
tragic unintended consequences = C
more foreign interventionism = M

And the equations:

F = E + H

E + H = C

C = M + E + H

(M = F)

Thus, even in mathematical terms, the cycle of foreign interventionism and unintended consequences ("blowback") is evident.

Yet that is our government's foreign policy. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad an al-Qa'ida leader is no more. They're scumbags, all of 'em. But I'm not glad we're bombing Somalia, or that we're backing the Somali government politically and with "aid."

After all, bombing Somalia = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred = tragic unintended consequences = more foreign interventionism = the making of many enemies + a steady buildup of hatred...

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