Another Day, Another War

The United States of America has been Balkanized, has been divided into twenty petty nations so that it will never again be a threat to world peace. – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Since President Obama decided to have the American military step in and let its presence be felt in the form of air strikes, we are once again faced with the American self-appointed watchdog of the world unilaterally deciding who deserves to be "free" and then "freeing" them. The American Revolution was a remarkable and fascinating event in history, where a colony threw off its shackles and made its own decisions about how things were going to be, inspiring the French Revolution which set off a chain reaction across Europe. It was all, undoubtedly, an unpredictable mess at the time. People died, dictators were overthrown, and people were inspired.

Now, hundreds of years later, the United States is behaving as if it has uncovered the secret to the perfect government, and it's going to follow some sort of established pattern of behavior that is destined to make the rest of the world just like them: Free. It's like they are trying to replay the American Revolution over and over, except that they don't realize that it just doesn't work with big brother pulling the strings. The situation in Iraq is some sort of dysfunction parent-child empty nest thing where you can't tell if the child won't let go of the parent or vice versa. Either way, everyone else thinks it's time for the kid to move out and make it on their own.

One of the really great things about the American Revolution is the way that the French soldiers were influenced and inspired by the Americans they fought beside. To maintain stability, this is the one thing the government has fairly effectively managed to control. There will not be droves of soldiers coming home from Libya looking to stir things up at home because of how inspiring the Libyan rebels were. That's one of the benefits of using air strikes – it keeps the distance. They also maintain their ability to control the narrative. That must be the most important thing, after all. With the whole world constantly on the verge of total chaos, it's the narrative that keeps them feeling safe. It doesn't really matter what happens or why, as long as they can make it fit into a palatable version of the story that won't have the masses rise up, or break off.