THICK AS A BRIC?

9/27/11

While the world was focusing on developments in the European Union’s efforts to punish German, Finnish, and Dutch frugality and reward Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian profligacy and call the result progress (Who am I kidding? The world wasn’t focused on developments in Europe; the world, or at least most observers in the United States, was focused on the latest lurid developments in the lives of its favorite celebrities, but even I can be hopeful once in awhile.), yours truly noticed two international stories that deserve perhaps not as much attention as the eurocrats’ efforts to destroy the last vestiges of fiscal sanity in the western world but that still merit our consideration.

First, the countries that are supporting Syrian President Bashar-Al-Assad in his efforts to suppress his population are, according to today’s (i.e., Tuesday, 9/27, page A8) Wall Street Journal are Brazil, Russia, Indian, China, and South Africa. Yes, that’s right, the BRICS, the countries that are the rising stars in the financial world and the countries that the Europeans are increasingly hoping to play the next sucker who will bail out the dying democracies on the continent’s southern periphery. What this seems to mean, especially since Russia and China have vetoes in the UN Security Council, is that Mr. Assad’s rule is not in serious jeopardy and probably will remain in place for the foreseeable future. No one, not Europe, which is looking to the BRICS to pay its bills, nor the United States, which owes over $1.3 trillion to China alone, is in a position to bully the BRICS into tossing their ally under the bus.

One can assume a position of high dudgeon and say how terrible it is that a brutal dictator will remain in place because the West has, by means of its own profligacy, squandered its ability to influence world affairs. But before one condemns the BRICS stance, and the Western inability to influence it, one must consider the long forgotten virtue of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries. Yes, Assad is a monster, but does that mean that the United State, the West, or the “international community” has a responsibility to overthrow him? Is it our job to overthrow all the world’s bad guys? Don’t be too quick to answer that question, especially since the BRICS, at least, seem to notice what a raging success the “Arab Spring” has been in such places as Egypt (Loyal readers could see this anarchy, or full circle back to dictatorship, coming while the consanguineous American press was gushing over the noble actions of the “young Egyptian protestors” who had nary a clue as to how the world works; see the following posts:

8/2/11 PERHAPS ALL WE NEED IS A LITTLE RE-EDUCATION
1/28/11 YOU BREAK IT YOU BOUGHT IT…
1/29/11 “…HE’S AN EGYPTIAN…” ???
2/3/11 AFTER ALL THESE CENTURIES, THE EGYPTIANS STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO TEACH US, Parts I and II)

and Libya. See my 8/22/11 post I HOPE MICHELE BACHMANN WASN’T COUNTING ON LIBYA TO GET OIL TO $2.

Further, the BRICS are dependent, to varying degrees, on oil and thus are dependent on Middle Eastern stability. So are we, but we seem to place a higher priority on the dewy-eyed, ingenuous pursuit of “democracy” in the Middle East.

The second recent foreign policy item that yours truly deemed significant was reported in today’s (Tuesday, 9/27’s) Wall Street Journal in an article entitled “Japan, Philippines Seek Tighter Ties to Counter China.” Despite all the whoop-whoop in which the War Party (Republicans like John McCain, Rick Santorum, and, especially, Lindsey Graham and anyone else of either party that draws an effective paycheck from the defense industry) is engaged, what is happening in the South China Sea is quite simple. The Chinese are asserting what they consider their territorial rights, the prerogative of any power, great or small. China’s neighbors, including Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei, etc. are defending what they consider their territorial rights, which, again, is the prerogative of any power, great or small. This is the way the world should work, and the United States, rather than try to conjure up another bad guy in order to feed our military-industrial complex, should just let these neighbors work it out in whatever way they see fit. This will, of course, never happen; we badly need a bogeyman in this country, and it looks like China has already been fitted with the jacket. See, inter alia, my 8/24/11 post “EGAD…IT’S LON CHANEY, JR.!”