The State of the World If we look at the world today, we can’t help but notice there are a lot of problems out there which could easily involve us, if we are not careful. Some countries are building up their offensive weapons which seem to have only one purpose, to take out our assets. Russia has a new missile which it wants to put on its most advanced fighter plane which is said to be so powerful it could take out our largest ships with one shot. If we look at our federal government and then state and local governments, we see many places where we are being taken advantage of. It is said it costs New York City ten times the amount it should to pave one mile of road. This means the corruption trickles down to the lowest government authorities. Let me get back to the state of the world. North Korea will never be a reasonable state as far as weapons go since it is run by a dictator. The best we can hope for is he doesn’t decide to attack us. The reason for this is there has never been a dictator who didn’t want to make sure he had power, power enough to remain in charge, power to be able to threaten other countries to get his way. In this case Kim might even believe force of arms will eventually be enough to take over South Korea. We have to try diplomacy with every country so we should not give up, but the chances of success are minuscule. It is very hard to convince countries not to arm themselves and acquire nukes because we ourselves are armed to the teeth with weapons and nukes. It is the old case of don’t do what I do, do what I say and this doesn’t work very well. I think it is time we thought more about ourselves and let other countries protect themselves. We have too many bases in foreign countries. There are presently 195 countries and we have the U.S. military in 150 of them that we know about. We have 170,000 military personnel in these countries. Some say the world will fall apart without our military presence, but I say let these countries protect themselves. An example of this is the European Union. There is no longer any need for an American presence there. Some say we might need some bases because they are strategic such as the air bases in Great Britain, but wouldn’t the world be a better place if no country had foreign bases? The problem would be convincing others to do the same if we gave up the bases, so this would never happen unless the host countries kicked out the foreigners. I have a problem with a lot of these things such as protecting countries like Saudi Arabia from Iran. The Saudis have one of the best funded militaries in the world. It should be able to protect itself, but it is a wonder how drones and missiles got to burn up some of their oil fields. Saudi Arabia is among the top five nations in the world in military spending and yet we no doubt would join them in a fight against Iran and do the heavy lifting. What would happen if Japan and China got into a war? The United States has about 50,000 military personnel in Japan along with about 40,000 dependents. Would the US military there get us involved with this war? The United States has too much on its plate. We have played the role of world policeman for far too long and at our expense. We have done things which have made things worse at times. Take the situation between Iran and Iraq in the past. We stepped into it and destroyed Iraq leaving Iran to run wild. We created the original problem in Iran by supporting a take over by the Shaw who decided to torture people and become a despot. If we didn’t do that originally, we might not have the problem with that country we do today. Non-interference with problems between other countries is the way to go, but politics is politics and politicians have reasons for wanting to keep things this way. First of all, it is a windfall for the military industrial complex who is constantly telling us we need more and new weapons and then overcharging us for them. War is their bread and butter and they don’t even need actual war, just the threat of it to sell their wares. Corruption is the currency of the world and every country is part of that currency. There is actually a corruption index which states the most corrupt country is Somalia. When we talk about corruption, we have to consider bribery, cronyism, kleptocracy, electoral fraud, nepotism, slush fund and simony. I don’t think there is a country on the face of this planet which is entirely free of these events but Australia and Finland are said to be the most corruption free. Bribery is a way of life in the world. Sometimes it is with money while other times it is with favors. Some judges get free vacations for ruling in favor of powerful insurance companies. While they don’t usually make the verdict, their influence on a jury is undeniable. Nepotism is everywhere. If one was to search the governments of the world, they would find it everywhere. Cronyism is another problem which exists everywhere. Just check how many relatives and friends of congressmen and congresswomen were given jobs in companies the congress deals with. I could go on and on about this stuff but why bother? We all know it exists. The world is in a sad state and many believe things will never change and use history as their guide. They may be right, but we can hope someday we will all see the light.
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