Friday Night in Fog City

I've been racing around so much these past few weeks, it is getting difficult to regain my bearings; thus my blogging has been much more inconsistent than ever before. I promise to get better!

Here in America, a debate rages over national security. President Barack Obama gives a major speech on the importance of maintaining our values in the so-called "war on terror," a war, I should hasten to add, I have never bought into as either necessary nor wise. Not that I am soft on terrorists. It's just that I'd prefer a much quieter, highly-classified technique that might be classified as an "eye for an eye" strategy.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney was quick to the podium after Obama's speech to claim, once again, that his administration's decision to torture terror suspects has kept America "safe" since 9/11. Maybe. Maybe not.

The most public torture incidents occurred at a prison in Iraq, which was a war waged by the Bush administration that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with that so-called "war on terror." Iraq, a secular Islamic state diametrically opposed to the al-Qaeda network that flew planes into buildings in New York and Washington, put on exhibit an amoral America so disgusting that even our closest allies around the world withdrew with a proper sense of digust.

Cheney hasn't faded away quietly. As V-P, he hid from sight, manipulating policies, including those that led to torture of foreign detainees. Since Obama won the election last November, Cheney is everywhere, spewing his hate to anyone who will listen. The MSM duly note his every word. He has a platform.

But history will not be kind to Dick Cheney. The U.S. is nothing without adhering to its core values, just as Obama wisely recognizes. If the evidence indicates that Cheney committed war crimes, he deserves to be prosecuted as such. I am quite sure that he is such a bully-coward that he will never hazard to leave these borders, lest a foreign prosecutor seize and detain him for all of the evil he has done.

On a related note, I listened to three travel writers talk on our local public radio station today about what it is like to be an American traveling overseas in the Obama era. There is apparently such an insatiable desire on the part of foreigners to talk about Obama, and how America elected him, that even the best-informed American tourist can feel overwhelmed.

Cynics, ultra-conservatives, and idiots generally will write this off as the naivete of anyone not an American. But as one who's traveled much of the world for decades, I view the American middle class as the most naive, insulated group of people in the world.

Get out of your shell! Travel! Meet people! Interact! If you do this with an open mind, you'll join the global community of humanity and leave parochial America behind forever.

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