Speaking geo-politically, the US has abandoned its basic premise and surrendered in a culture war to the same banks that financed the transformation of Germany from a hopeless bankrupt to a formidable military machine in the 1930's.
If international rivalries center on control by force of one another's streets, MS13, the Mexican Mafia and US drug-money banks are winning. The US is predicated on inalienable rights, the theory that those wily humans will not put up with prohibitions, control by force, fences, police states, censorship or dispossession every other generation.
Wachovia Bank, for example, recently paid a fine after admitting they took more drug money than the US spent in Afghanistan-- last year alone. Since the Eisenhower administration, the same banks that financed Hitler have profited from this psychotic US strategy. Reality is what makes this country viable, not force or prohibition, private prisons run for profit, or propaganda or foreign wars.
Our long-term geo-political strategy must be based on the reality of human nature, not the profits of corporations or banks or the fiendish skills of weapon scientists. As the bully of the world, we are finally impotent, doomed to spend ever more on \"Defense\". This works out nicely for antique technologies like oil and bullets.
As \"the light of the world\", extending human rights and respect to all, protecting all life on earth, we are a source of life and strength to our friends. Respecting all, we are defended by all. No censorship, no police state can withstand human nature. As Helen Keller said, \"There is no security in Nature.\" We are all in this together.
War has outlived its usefulness.
This publication of afghan-related data by the NYTimes makes public what the internet has whispered for years. I, for one, welcome the light of day. Only vampires live in darkness.
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