Returning to the International Blogging Scene...

It’s been a while since I have opined on the international scene and how events beyond our American shores affect us professionally and personally and as a country.

And so the potential agenda is what my military friends call a “target rich” field.

Where should we start?

1)    With the continuing near hostilities between the United States and Pakistan which have seen the Pakistanis cut off supply lines to our troops in Afghanistan and kick our airbase for drones out of their country?

2)    With the ongoing “we’re not going to let you build a nuclear bomb” confrontation between the U.S.A. and Iran which now has Iran continuing to build the bomb, and showing off a captured American drone to boot?

3)    With the departure of our troops from Iraq even as our commanders were calling for our troops NOT to depart (for the safety of the Iraqi people and the Americans still in Iraq ) and Iraqi politicians expressing major second doubts about this politically timed (for the US) withdrawal?

4)    With the car bombings and assassinations in Afghanistan, with the Pakistani ISI-sponsored Haqqani network claiming responsibility for these murders?

5)    With the Arab Spring giving way in Egypt to an Islamic winter, with the first victims being Egypt’s Christians, and the Egyptian democracy advocates coming in a close second?

6)    With the bloodbath of a stifled Arab Spring (now called a civil war) in Syria, and the Assad regime still in power despite calls for it to step down from even members of the Arab League (but NOT Iran’s mullahs)?

7)    With a resurgent China openly stealing our military and industrial secrets with a spy network and a digital policy of cyber-subversion which the USA has so far been unable to stop?

8)    With Vladimir Putin blatantly trying to hold onto power in Russia at all costs – and those costs now including a protesting Middle Class which seems prepared to go to the Gulags – but has not faced mass arrests because it may not be politically possible – even in Russia? 

9)    Or, since I’m writing this while watching a plunging stock market and an Obama Administration looking on as seemingly helpless bystanders, shall I write about the plunging Euro and the political maelstrom that it has brought to the Eurozone members, Britain, and soon, I fear, to these shores? The Greek Prime Minister, Italy’s Silvio Berlesconi, the Spanish Prime Minister – gone. France’s President Sarkozy wobbling. And only German Chancellor Angela Merkel still exuding determination and strength, even while a gaggle of economists fear a World Depression in the making if the Greeks and Italians (for starters) are forced pay for their budget profligacy, their overweening reliance on state pensions, early retirements, and non-competitive government jobs – in short, socialism run wild?

If you have any favorites, let me know by posting a choice.

Meantime, to end on a positive note, I should make mention that the Russian owner of the New Jersey (soon to be the New York) Nets basketball team, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, has announced that he plans to run against Vladimir Putin for the Russian presidency. We will find out soon enough whether Russia is a Democracy (however you want to define the term), or just another authoritarian state with a leadership trying to return to its mid-20^th century roots.