Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
If SecState’s discourse here were an elaborate ruse to keep from talking about what is really happening, especially conceptually, I would say it is brilliant. I’m sure some of that purpose infuses the discourse. But my deep impression is that it is straight-up straight-shooting, as the man himself is known to be, and as such broadcasts the same conceptual confusion and un-serious statecraft I have been hearing all my life from State and the Ivies.
Basically, a congeries of cliché, canard, weasel words, misleading phrases and cabal-friendly articulations whose translations are not stated for fear of conjuring public riots.
He says Iraq rebuilds itself after Raqqa and Mosul go quiet, yet, he wants — and does not speak of it — to poke Russia in the eye by building Ukraine an NTC, teaching them USA methods of war-fighting — making Ukrainians USA proxies (I wonder if they realize that) — and putting USA National Guard brigades on regular rotation at that Ukrainian NTC?
And Erdogan gets the blessing while Maduro gets the curse? Hypocrisy, is thy name immortal?
And wanting discussion with Russia over a Syrian end-state — as if that is USA interest — while announcing aforehand two immutable demands: Assad and Iran out of Syria? And why is Iraq’s end-state not our interest but Syria’s is? This sounds like USA spending down her wealth as proxies for EU padrones’ ambitions … again. League of Nations stuff. Who made Syria, the Levant? Not USA. Strategic confusion, contradiction all around. Such are the opposite of USA interests.
And wanting stability, over and over stated, when all of natural and human history presents no such thing every occurring or able to! And what is stability? For whom, by whom, at whose loss? Looters want stability. Builders want opportunity.
All still assuming the world’s interests are USA’s interests, or should be — and vice-versa — and that USA’s wishes are consistent from place to place and morally superior to alternatives. This is the posture of a preening slave. Everyone else seems to know it, but not stewards of the USG?
Woodrow Wilson never died, apparently, at least not in D.C., at least not at State and the Ivies.
And I don’t much like entertainment personalities as press secretaries, especially as eye-candy, because the interests of those functions, and the training for them, inherently conflict.
I think SecState is heading to collide with influential elements in the White House and other departments. Certainly with the electorate who filled this White House. Anyhow, drama ahead, and Mr. Tillerson is not up to the task at hand, so it appears. Very disappointing. The man is so admirable in so many respects. He is not up to this job POTUS volunteered for and was given of casting USA foreign policy to help — along with finance and war-fighting — forge rational USA grand national strategic objectives, though I would be delighted to have that observation proven false.
It may be that the casting needs be done in fits and starts, bits and pieces, as personalities grasp the drift and gist of opportunities opening, rather than massively at once. Concepts are not abandoned willy-nilly, especially when rice-bowls hang off them. Again, before one can propound foreign policy that restores rational grand national strategic objectives, one must have at least a precursor of grand national strategic objectives that gratify the nation’s sovereignty.
What is rational for a nation is what effectuates her sovereignty. There is no other reason for being a nation than that one. Statecraft develops and deploys foreign policy, finance and war-fighting assets that effectuate national sovereignty. That is its purpose. Not national security — there is no such thing, not anywhere — national sovereignty. Her own sovereignty is a nation’s most rational grand national strategic objective. Statecraft that does not effectuate that objective is somewhere on a continuum between treason and stupidity.
Yet, one would be delighted to see at least steady push towards full casting, full restoration of Washington’s, Lincoln’s and TR’s detachment from the world’s endless vagaries while speaking softly and holding at the ready that fist-full of arrows. I would be happy just to see USAID thrown in a padded cell some miles below Leavenworth and left there with a rosary and that’s all.
Update 1: Sarah Hoyt: Massacre, War And Colonialism
Update 2: Feral Jundi: Industry Talk: The Historic Implications Of Erik Prince’s Plan For Afghanistan
Related: Babatim: The Graveyard Of Hope
Update 4: Reynolds: Afghanistan and Iraq history lesson (reread often)
Update 5: VDH: Trump’s High-Stakes Tweeting
Update 6: Myron Magnet: See No Evil? Then it will take you by surprise.
Update 7: Conservatives Need A Remedial Course In Sovereignty
Update 8: Why Trump’s U.N. Speech Was A Triumph
Related: To Be Great the U.N. Must Defend Democratic Sovereignty
Update 9: Spengler: The Bells Of Barcelona Toll For Europe
Update 10: John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821: Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
