Ignorance and Freedom vs. Education and Slavery, Part II

Carrying on from my earlier e-mail conversation with my friend.

He replied, tongue-in-cheek, with two salient points:

you’re saying ignorant bliss is preferable to educated slavery. Both, very poor options, no? The problem with freedom-loving yokels is that you can give them any facts at all and they can’t fight it except on whether it “feels” right or not. The people interviewed mostly seemed switched off in almost all socio-political issues (ask them about sport or entertainment and you might get a different reaction) which is open season for the unethical or even well-intentioned leader with an agenda.

and

I mean Vietnam too! Apart from when you guys stepped in at the end of WWII has the US actually “won” a war it got itself involved in (forget Hollywood please)?

What follows is my reply:

I’ll beg to differ on the war question.

• Tripolitan War – While European powers (except for Britain) were paying tribute to jihadist Tripolitan state-sponsored pirates in the 1790s, the US actually fought back.  And won.  And never had to deal with them again until the 1970s
• Various North and South American wars throughout the 19th Century which established US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. 
• Mexican-American War in the middle of the century. 
• Spanish-American War at the end of the Century, which left the US with various levels of governance over many countries which are now independent.
• World War I – Although only involved for one year, the addition of the US to the war effort was definitive and lifted the Allies out of the quagmire.
• Korea – Stopped at the North Korea border in order to please the international community.
• Viet Nam – withdrew to please the international community.  The VC generals admit they were losing at the time; if it wasn’t for Hollywood and the leftish media, they would have lost the whole shebang.  Subsequent withdrawal led to 2 Million civilians dead in Viet Nam and 1 Million dead in Cambodia.
• The Cold War – By getting the Soviets to spend money they didn’t have on weapons systems, the Soviet system collapsed and Eastern Europe was liberated.  Most formerly Soviet satellite states in Europe are now functioning members of the international community.  If it wasn’t for the US, Western Europe would have become part of the Comintern.
• First Gulf War – did not go all the way to Baghdad out of respect for the international community.
• Somalia – On a peacekeeping mission, ROEs defined by the UN, 18 Americans killed by the followers of an Islamist warlord, whom bin Laden claimed to have trained himself; Americans weren’t ready to deal with this as it was so far outside our experience.  Plus Clinton didn’t have the cojones to fight back as he should have.
• The Balkans – The wholesale ethnic slaughter probably would still be going on right now, had the US not unilaterally sent bombers in while Europe and the UN wrung their hands on the sidelines.
• 2nd Gulf War – Actually winning the peace now that there are enough troops.  Casualties are down by 75% since the amount of troops sent in have been boosted.  (By the way, as a proportion of the overall military, the casualty rate is the same in “war” time 2003-2006 as it was in peacetime between 1983-1986; doesn’t sound like losing anything except the press war; in terms of numbers, more active duty US military died between 1983 and 1986 than between 2003 and 2006).  Also, more than 1000 Iraqis a day are returning home to a country where the rule of law is becoming the norm or, at the very least, the aspiration.
• Afghanistan (really Pakistan) – wait for Musharraf to get assassinated.  The US better turn Waziristan into a smoking hole or we will all have hell to pay.  No one else can or will do it.

I didn’t say ignorant bliss is preferable to educated slavery...Ignorant freedom is preferable to educated slavery.  Say what you will about America, I can’t think of any other functioning country that has as much personal freedom for people; or fosters such a philosophy in its mythos.  Believe me, as ignorant as they may be about geography, Americans are better at sniffing out when the government is trying to pull the wool over their eyes than most Europeans and Brits are.

In the EU we can’t even choose which sort of light bulbs we can use.

I am reading a book right now called The Pentagon’s New Map written by an analyst who is by no means a Bush partisan – Thomas P.M. Barnett – if Hilary Clinton becomes president, he might find himself appointed to a role high in the NSA.  His thesis, which seems to work when used as a filter is that the world is divided into two camps: the Functioning Core (The US, Europe, China, bits of India, Russia, etc.) which is those countries that are involved in globalisation and have a stake in it, and the Disconnected Gap, countries which either don’t have a stake in globalisation or don’t want a stake in globalisation.  The Functioning Core works on established rulesets to work among themselves.  The Disconnected Gap is not privy to these rulesets yet.  Every conflict in the world since 1972 (except for the Cold War MAD) takes place in the Gap.

In order to impose Core rulesets on the Gap, and bring them along, there has to be something dramatic that comes along, such as the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (which he supported because 2003 was as good a time as any to eliminate a bad guy in the Gap, no matter who did it) or the destruction of Islamism (which, by definition, rejects the Core’s rulesets).

The US (and Europe) should see their main national interest in bringing the Gap countries into the Core, and to eliminate or completely marginalise those internal movements, such as Political Islam and neo-Marxism, which reject the Core rulesets (that second half about internal movements is my own extrapolation from his thesis).  The reason Americans seem so scary to the rest of the world is because they are much farther along in integrating the Core rulesets than the rest of the world, including Europe, which is still reeling from recent regional instability, including the Cold War.  When your daily life is and has been mostly peaceful due to the institutions and the culture that you live in, you can afford to be ignorant like Americans can be.  (In some ways, this also applies to Brits in contrast to Europeans, as well...)

Personally, I think the EU as it is has about another 15-20 years before it falls apart due to competing national interests, but the constituent countries will remain part of the Core.  Once Russia establishes itself as a full-fledged member of the Core rather than the black sheep with the chip on its shoulder as it is now; barring the ascent of Political Islam, Europeans will be able to afford to be as ignorant as Americans are.

But there are two obvious challenges to the Core coming from the Gap – the Middle East situation with Iran and Saudi Arabia as the focal points, and South America with Hugo Chavez and other mini-Hugos popping up (I still stand by my assertion that within the next 3 to 5 years we will be hearing about Venezuelan killing fields, killings of people well into the five or six digits if he stays in power.)  Not to mention the internal opposition to the globalisation process within the Core.

Interesting times we live in.

UPDATE:  Crikey!  I've had a small avalanche of traffic linking back to me from Thomas P.M. Barnett's blog...Welcome visitors.

Comments

[Custom dissertation]

Excellent Blog every one can get lots of information for any topics from this blog nice work keep it up.

[Term Papers Writing]

I'm very thankful to the author for posting such an amazing development post. Continuing to the post, This is a fantastic survey, very nice write up,Thanks you for sharing.

[Term Papers]

I really admire this, I mean it really looks interesting! Very nice research. Thanks to the author.