Jessica T. Mathews wrote a masterful and useful piece on foreign policy. What she overlooked is something that begs to be brought to light: the role that the press now plays in both domestic and foreign policies; a role that will grow as time passes and must no longer be ignored.
The
essay that Mathews wrote came under the title: “American power after
Afghanistan,” and the subtitle: “How to Rightsize the Country’s Global Role,”
published on September 17, 2021 in Foreign Affairs. Here is the opening sentence
that tells what the article is tackling: “For 30 years, since the end of the
Cold War, the United States has searched unsuccessfully for a purpose for its
now unrivalled global power”.
Jessica
Mathews did an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the contemporary ideas
that represent America’s foreign policy. She even touched briefly on how and
where foreign policy intersects with domestic policy. And she repudiated the
neoconservative (neocon) view of America being the policeman of the world. But
how does any of that translate into a workable foreign policy? The answer is
dismally. Here is how Mathews put it: “Washington grew more and more reliant on
the use of military power and lost confidence in concerted diplomacy as a means
of dealing with adversaries”.
How
did this happen? Simply put, the message of the American ship of state as
formulated by those who are elected to be at the helm and navigate the ship
through calm and rough waters, lost the ability to convey the correct message
to the domestic audience, and more importantly to the captains of the foreign
ships of state. This resulted in everybody getting confused about America’s
intentions, thus gave up on what Washington thinks and does.
The
confusion that’s messing the American message has two origins. One kind of
confusion is generated by individuals who operate to advance their own personal
interests. The other kind of confusion is generated by groups such as the
neocons who work to advance their ideological interests. To understand this
part, we need to know how things used to be done, and how they are done now.
It
used to be that if you wanted to serve on the National Security team or a high
government position, you wrote a serious academic book about the subject that
interests you, hoped to be noticed by the President of the United States, and
called to serve. This is how Henry Kissinger and others of his caliber,
ascended to posts of importance. Once in government, the work of these people turned
out to be professional and useful to America and the world.
What
exists nowadays, is a revolving door policy that connects two rooms. One room
may be called, “media contributor” the other may be called, “staffer at State
or the White House.” This is how many applicants, such as John Bolton, got
appointed to serve nowadays. He barked incessantly on Fox News till he was
noticed, got appointed, messed up and was fired. In short, all you need to do these
days to be noticed and called to serve, is go on television or write a column
in which you spew the most extreme nonsense you can think of, thus be noticed
and get the phone call that makes your day.
Because
this kind of game-playing unfolds in full view of the public, the confusion that
resulted from something like the pandemic, became overwhelming. It is that
America has so far suffered the equivalent of 8 Hiroshimas, and the counting of
those who die, continues to climb. The confusion began at the start of the
pandemic, when Jewish and their ass-kissing Evangelical running dogs, came out
and predicted that America and Israel will make the vaccine that will cure
their populations in a day or maybe a week.
They
said this will happen because those two adhere to the liberal democratic system
of governance, whereas the others in the world, adhere to the autocratic
system. The proof as to which system is superior, they went on to promise, will
be shown in the fact that neither America nor Israel will order a lockdown
whereas the others will. What was needed for this to come true, said the
deceiving Jews and braindead Evangelicals, was for the Congress to give Israel
ten million dollars to work on the vaccine.
When
this did not work well enough to make the American public believe that Israel was
the miracle that’s maintaining America on the pedestal of eternal glory, the
confusion machine started advertising a made-in-Israel mask that was so super
advanced, they said, the whole world was talking about it. They made it sound
like if you’re already dead, and you wear the Jewish mask, you come back to
life. But that did not work for them either. So, they came up with another new
idea.
You’ll
know what it is because now, no major publication in America (print or
electronic) speaks of statistics meant to convince the skeptics they should get
vaccinated, without also talking about the made-up Israeli statistics that add
to the confusion instead of clarifying things. And the number of dead
Americans, many of whom are children, increases everyday in the effort to make
the public believe that Israel must remain the most important thing on the
minds of Americans even when they are dying. This is criminality that rises to
the level of mass murder, and every imbecile that’s a part of this propaganda
machine must be institutionalized or tried for murder and dealt with
accordingly.
The
late John Dewey once said that the solution to the ills of democracy is more
democracy. This also means that the solution to the ills of free speech is more
free speech. What all of this implies, is that suppressing free speech is a
poison that can be neutralized by allowing the free speech of those who are
silenced. It follows that those who suppress free speech are as guilty as
killers. They must be treated as such and prevented from hurting society ever
again.
As
it happens in America nowadays, those who run the propaganda machine that
spreads the false news, are the same characters who suppress the free speech of
others. They are out there for all to see, and must be identified and shamed
into changing their ways or suffer the consequences.
It is the only way that America’s message to its citizens and the world will be heard loudly and free of interfering noise.