The power struggle

What’s love got to do with it? – Tina Turner

The 12-stitch cut lip on U.S. President Obama’s face qualifies as a metaphor for how far another icon, Tiger Somebody, has been roughed up and hopefully toughed up by reality. I’m sure, he never knew that someday he’d be looked upon as vacillating, and we’re just talking about golf. Sliding from Number 1 to Number 2 in world rankings must bother Barack more than Tiger because his job’s actually important.

Going out of town after getting an electoral spanking made good sense, but it was discomfiting to see Obama denied at every turn on the international stage. He’s supposed to be the West’s hope for “Hey, let’s all get along and love one another right now.” He failed. There’s to be no currency reform in Beijing, no small signal that China is done with the U.S. as far as being Number 1 in the Eastern Pacific.

North Korea, which China knows is a runt, is useful to them because it’ll divert scarce resources away from Washington’s limited worldwide grasp and publicly expose gaps in both the capability and the will to play war stupidly on two main and numerous incidental fronts. It’s more than sports. We’re seeing an American century giving way to a bigger, more important player. They can see the Americans no longer have the monetary or military means to decide what happens in most of the world anymore. China believes in the adage that great nations have no friends, only alliances and that every game played is hardball.

They don’t give foreign aid. The new kid on the block is saying that unless the U.S. solves the North Korea acting out problem, they’re making monetary moves to supplant the Greenback as the world’s go to, as far as money’s concerned. Our news is concerned that China will be overwhelmed by millions of starving North Koreans. It won’t be a problem. With a couple of extra trillion dollars in reserve they’ll easily buy billions for the refugees.

With the U.S. in deep financial trouble and its military might muted, Beijing is headed the opposite direction. Its economy is strong, they’re building new warships, bullying Japan and keeping North Korea handy in much the same way some people keep vicious dogs. There’s a good reason Obama went to India so that he could have a counterbalance somewhere in the region.

Seeing that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are lost, and that Pakistan and Iran are as unstable as ever, and having blunted its military and ruined the treasury, the only option left for the U.S. is to leave in defeat, which seems hard to do now but will be harder later. It’s a good thing Canada is pulling out its combat troops by July 2011. But the same facts are in place. We lost.
Putting in trainers for whatever reason is only a whitewash and a waste of money and time. The Afghans don’t want other people telling them what to do. Isn’t that clear to
Ottawa?