BunkBlog

Had to go to the staff meeting thingie this morning. I hate buzzwords. For instance, not only do these folks “talk to” a subject rather than about it, they take things “offline” for later discussion. OK, um, you’re not online now, bozo! What the hell do you think these words mean?

Other items I can’t stand yet hear all too often:

• collocated – pronounced “co-locate” The word is pronounced as one item, not two things slammed together. And, why not just say “located with” or “located near” instead? Does “co-located” make you feel good?
• Staff the document – Do you mean distribute for comments? Staff is a noun. It is not a verb. It will never be a verb. Deal with it.
• He authored that – You mean he wrote it? He’s not a damned novelist, he’s a tech writer.
• It’s in the wickets – Here’s a statement with near-negative information content. Where is it? “The Wickets” is not a neighborhood or region, so it must be “in the review process” or something, right? If you’re not sure exactly who has it, at least add some information to the exchange!
• Leverage – stop it stop it stop it!
• Out of the loop – Were you some kind of networking appliance?
• Utilize – Just say “use” eh?

And if I were a pointless internet survey, I’d be Buzzword Bingo.
current_music: Adema – Giving In
current_mood: amused

Shamelessly stolen from Infonaut on Slashdot.

The piece betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how foreign policy is shaped. First, the world we live in is not black and white. More often than not, we’re dealing with international problems that have no clean, clear answer.

For example, it’s easy to dismiss American Cold War fears of Castro’s Cuba. But then, he did ask for and receive assistance from the Soviets in the form of missiles, didn’t he?

The Vietnam War was by almost anyone’s estimation, a wasteful, stupid blunder of immense proportions. But let us not forget that a large part of the reason the US got involved in the first place was that the Soviets were making advances of one sort or another on almost every continent. They had what the US perceived to be a client state in North Vietnam.

The Soviet Union espoused a form of government that viewed the destruction of capitalism and the bourgeous democracies as a primary goal.

US foreign policy was dictated by the overarching threat of communism. Sure, now it seems a joke – it collapsed from the inside, from its own weight. But just as sabre-rattling from the West scared the Soviets, the US was scared by Soviet threats as well.

Yes, there are other factors at work. Yes, the Soviet Union is now dead. Yes, mistakes are still being made in US foreign policy.

But the September 11th attacks didn’t happen because Bin Laden was pissed off about the Vietnam War, or about the Bay of Pigs, or our meddling with Iran. Bin Laden was pissed off because we supported Saudi Arabia, a country whose rulers he sees as morally corrupt.

Our reasons for supporting the House of Saud over the years primarily stemmed from our desire to maintain stability in the Middle East. During the Cold War, the Soviets were trying as hard as possible to exert influence there, in hopes that by choking off the supply of oil to the West, Europe and the United States would become vulnerable.

We utilized balance of power politics, the same thing that Metternich used in Europe to avoid a major war for years. It’s not policy driven by right and wrong. It’s policy driven by expediency. It’s not perfect. Hell, it’s barely adequate much of the time.

But I’d much rather trust foreign policy to people who are thinking of overall balances and stability and peace, than people who would rather persue blindly optimistic policy based on idealism.

The track record of idealistic US foreign policy is pretty dismal. Woodrow Wilson got us involved in WWI too late, because he was loathe to go to war. Then his idealism failed at the Treaty of Versailles, because he went along with France’s desire to humiliate and punish Germany.

Jimmy Carter was so infatuated with the idea of working with the Soviets for detente, that when they surprised him by invading Afghanistan, he launched a massive arms buildup (yes, Reagan didn’t start it – Carter did) and sent the CIA in to support the mujahedin.

So while it’s easy to throw rocks, and it’s easy to look at history in retrospect, dealing with the day-to-daymatters of international relations is a mite trickier.

The UN won’t save you from terrorists. Germany won’t work to protect American jobs by keeping the price of oil stable. Japan isn’t going to keep India and Pakistan from nuking each other. It’s a big, complicated, dangerous world out there.

Finally, the argument that Americans are being misled by the government about US foreign policy is a load of crap. American foreign policy aims are well known to anyone who takes the time to read about them.

Foreign policy is a complex topic, and you can’t get a grip on it by watching E! Entertainment News. Less than half the eligible population of the US votes. News shows that stick to news get lower ratings than those that pander to the lowest common denominator.

Americans largely don’t want to think about international affairs. That is a far more serious problem for the US in the long run than any specific policy blunders.