"During the Cold War, it actually -- it may not have seemed so at the time, obviously, to great leaders, but it was easier than it is today -- simpler is maybe a way to put it.
"We could make really bad decisions and still win because we were pretty much the sole dominant economic and military power around," Kerry said. "That's not true anymore."
Kerry said that during the era of mutually assured destruction "choices were less varied, less complicated, more stark, more clear." He said everything was clear cut and split into camps "communism, democracy; West, East; the Iron Curtain, the great line of divide. And many things were subsumed and quashed by that force of that bipolar world."
In today's world, US foreign policy is more complicated as "the vast array of challenges that we face today as the world is witnessing this explosion of sectarianism, religious extremism, radical ideologies, and frankly too many failed states and failing states -- a vast challenge to governance, sometimes even witnessed here in our nation's capital."
Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo is as usual on the attack and he skewered the nation's top diplomat (be proud America) in his Wednesday column entitled "John Kerry: Clueless Buffoon", from which I excerpt:
Yes, those were the Good Old Days -- when children in the schoolroom cowered beneath their desks -- and we almost went to war with the nuclear-armed Soviet Union over missiles in Cuba which posed no more threat than missiles outside Moscow. Does "quaint" even begin to describe that vintage scene? It's all so Currier & Ives.
We were the Good Guys and the Russkies were the Bad Guys -- and never the morally equivalent twain shall meet! If only we could get back to those halcyon days, everything would be "simpler," says Kerry.
Having an implacable enemy of unrivaled evil supposedly bent on our destruction has its advantages -- yes, a US Secretary of State actually does seem to believe this. Having nuclear-armed enemies is a Good Thing -- because it makes the job of US officials so much easier. Should we support a South American dictator who murders his own people for looking at him cross-eyed -- but of course we should, because he hates the Russkies! Do we really need to build more nuclear weapons than it would take to incinerate the world one-hundred times over? The answer -- back then -- was an obvious yes, at least to our wise rulers (who never considered how dangerous our arsenal would become once it started to age). And how about getting involved in a war in Southeast Asia that would take tens of thousands of American lives -- and easily a million non-Americans -- a war this same John Kerry would refer to with unmitigated contempt as he threw his war medals right back at the Pentagon?
To think that this fool nearly became President of the United States until he was derailed in Ohio back in 2004 by Karl Rove's chicanery is scary in retrospect and ironically burnishes the Bush legacy. Kerry is another wonderful example of the rottenness of the American political elite that rewards dishonor and incompetence and where the scum always rises to the top.
Obama meanwhile continues to arrogantly instigate global powers with the latest being China. This week during his "Pacific pivot" trip abroad while in Japan he once again came dangerously close to drawing one of his stupid and troublesome "red lines" by taking Japan's side in a long-running and contentious dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands. Per a story in The Guardian:
The US is duty-bound to come to Japan's aid in the event of a conflict with China over a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea, Barack Obama declared at the start of a tour of Asia aimed at reassuring Washington's allies in the face of threats to stability from North Korea and an increasingly assertive China.
Obama went further than some analysts had expected in reassuring the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, that Japan's dispute with China over the Senkakus -- known in China as the Diaoyu -- were covered by the allies' post-war security treaty.
But he reiterated Washington's refusal to take sides in the sovereignty dispute and called on China and Japan to resolve their differences through dialogue.
"Our commitment to Japan's security is absolute and article five [of the security treaty] covers all territories under Japan's administration, including the Senkaku islands," Obama said during a joint press conference with Abe.
While hedging somewhat in calling for a peaceful resolution of the conflict it is beginning to look as though the US is now rebuilding the WWII Axis with the inclusion of The Homeland and NATO in a 21st-century push for the same global domination of the infamous man with the mustache. History has shown how that turned out but in America there is neither the widespread knowledge of such nor the ability to learn from it.
As the old Chinese curse goes, "May you live in interesting times."
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