Busybody Nation | James Howard Kunstler

[Tace]

James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust

Sept. 2, 2014

If anyone above a kindergarten pay-grade has figured out America’s vital interest in the Ukraine, it has not been reported -- or even leaked -- from the foundering vessel that is the U.S. State Department.

In fact, when you consider the results, it’s hard to understand the rationale behind any recent U.S. foreign policy endeavor. Mr. Putin of Russia summed it up last week, saying, “Anything the United States touches turns to Libya or Iraq.” Vlad has a point there, and what he left off the list, of course, was Ukraine, which entered the zone of failing states a few months ago when the United States lubricated the overthrow of its previously-elected government.

What complicates things is that Ukraine is right next door to Russia. For many years it was even part of the same nation as Russia. Russia has a lot of hard assets in Ukraine: pipelines, factories, port facilities. Because they were recently part of the same nation, a lot of Russian-speaking people live in the eastern part of Ukraine bordering Russia. The casual observer from Mars might easily discern that Russia has a range of real interests in Ukraine. Especially if the central government of Ukraine can’t control its own economic affairs.

The United States claims to have interests in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. These nations are respectively 11,925, 11,129, 10,745, and 10,072, miles away from America -- not exactly neighbors of ours. All of them, one way or another, and partly due to our exertions, are checking into the homeless shelter of failed statedom. Afghanistan was, shall we say, a special case, since it was being used thirteen years ago explicitly as a “base” (al Qaeda) for launching attacks on U.S. soil. But that was then. No other war or “war” in U.S. history has lasted as long. And it remains unclear whether our presence there yet today is a “nation-building” project or a mere occupation, in the absence of some better idea of what to do.

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[newthinking]

1. Basically a Summation of the antiwar position.

Protecting the financial elites does not make the world a better place. In fact it is raising havoc.