Anti-Americanism? Big surprise...

Proving once again that he can always make America look more like an ignorant, self-important world bully, President Bush said on "60 Minutes" last Sunday that Iraqis should be thankful for US intervention in Iraq:

"We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude. That's the problem here in America: They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq."

"What an asshole!" I thought as I read this quote. Can the president really be that out of touch? I don't think most of us wonder, I think most of us know that Iraqis have little reason to be grateful for US intervention in their country (even if supporters of the war won't say so louder than a whisper). Beginning with the destruction of their culture due to the unwillingness or inability of American troops to do things like safeguard the National Museum, and culminating in the civil war that kills hundreds of Iraqis a week, I don't imagine many Iraqis have anything to be thankful for, or much to look forward to, in 2007.

It's no wonder that around the world, from Iran to Venezuela, national leaders are defining themselves not by what they stand for, but what they stand against: the United States. Just days ago, according to Business Day, "Anti-US leftists behind a South American national- isolation drive stood together yesterday as presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia feted Ecuador's incoming leader, Rafael Correa."

And what are the loony ideas of the American-educated economist? Renegotiation of debt, ending the lease of a US military base (used to fly sorties into Columbia as part of the war on drugs), an independent judiciary, and representatives that live amongst the people they represent, according to this Reuters article. Hmm, shouldn't those last two ideas sound familiar to lawmakers in the US? Oh, I mean, what a crazy nut!

The shame of all this is that the US has the wealth and the clout to be a positive world player, but instead we're reaping the results of more than 50 years of support for genocidal dictators and disastrous wars.

Let me tell you, if I were in charge things would be different. The first thing I would do is scrap obsolete military programs: the US spends over $6 billion a year to maintain a nuclear arsenal of thousands of warheads - for some reason. In case we need to blow up the moon? Or the F-22 fighter, a plane that costs $335 million apiece (averaging R&D costs across the expected number of planes) and is designed to shoot down other planes (unless you count the ground-strike capability tacked on at the last second in a lackluster attempt to justify the project). How many planes did Iraq field in the last war, exactly? What country in the world has planes that are more advanced than our old fighter jets? The ironic thing is that the pentagon didn't even request any F-22's in the 2007 budget, but congress ordered a bunch anyways (the plan is 20 every year for the next 4 years), because a lot of people have jobs building F-22's. God forbid we eliminate jobs that produce equipment without a need. That would really suck if we had to spend that money on paying those same people the same salary to do things like help people, or at least produce something that would be useful to society. How quickly we forget the warnings of our respected leaders, such as this quote from the man who coined the term "military-industrial complex:"

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." - President Eisenhower - From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

Well, that's all I have to say about that. I got tapped by a car today, a guy that was stopped at an intersection while traffic ran in the perpendicular street. I started to walk in front of him, and then for some reason he decided he should ease into the intersection, even though there was still opposing traffic. He tapped me, buckling my front knee, and then hit his brakes and waved me across. What a prince! I mean, I've been to places like India where they drive like maniacs, but in Oruro they drive like assholes. It's unreal.