Author: blueZhift

The Olympic torch was extinguished several times due to protests as the torch relay passed through Paris. While I’m sure that many share the view that mixing up sports and politics is a bad thing, I think that this just is just more proof that everything involving human beings and their relationships IS politics. There’s no escaping the fact that many around the world believe that the Chinese government’s record on human rights is bad and that China should have a more open government, hence the protests. At the same time, the Olympic games is going to bring prestige to the Chinese no matter what happens, which includes political gain for the government as well. It works both ways. No matter whether it is science, art, or sports, all is politics.

Even with Chicago area gasoline prices approaching $4/gal, with crude oil prices topping $100/barrel why isn’t gasoline more expensive yet? In the past, the oil companies have never hesitated to raise gasoline prices for any and all reasons. Why so shy now? Do I have Dick Cheney to thank once again for this restraint? During the Bush W years, he and Cheney’s big oil pals have done very well indeed, so I’m sure they owe them big time. If gasoline prices shot up to $6 or $7 per gallon in a short period of time before an election, that would cause a great deal of political trouble. Sadly it seems that Americans are more concerned about the price of gasoline than thousands dead in an unending war in Iraq.

With that in mind, gas prices might be used as a barometer of big oil’s confidence in John McCain. If they are confident that he can win the White House in November, then gasoline prices will not rise sharply during the upcoming summer driving season. Perhaps they will stay under $5/gal. If they think there’s no way in hell McCain can win, then bar the door and hello $6/gal gasoline! They’ve shown a lot of restraint over the last three years during which time the price of crude oil has doubled, but once they decide that government control is likely to go over to the oil industry hostile Democrats, they’ll grab all the cash they can before the party’s over.

Yesterday I was thinking about the 4000 plus soldiers the United States has lost during the last 5 years of war in Iraq. I thought, wow, that’s 4000 good soldiers whose services have been lost. Have they been wasted? It certainly seems that way to me. Almost 4 years ago, I wondered here if it were time for the US to adopt a Star Trek style Prime Directive. After 4000 dead soldiers and many times more Iraqi civilians, a non interference amendment to the US Constitution seems like an even better idea.

The rest of the world doesn’t want the United States telling them what kind of government they should have and forcibly removing governments we don’t like. We are not wanted in Iraq by either the Sunni’s or the Shiites, or the Kurds for that matter. To stay now, we are only delaying the inevitable civil war and partitioning of Iraq. I still think, free and open societies are the way to go, but each culture has to decide the when and how of that on their own. That can be very messy, but I suspect far fewer lives will be lost than when outsiders try to impose their will. I hope Iraq will stand as a lesson for the limits of interference in the affairs of others for a long time. Sadly, I think Vietnam was supposed to do that too…