Clear and present danger

One paranoid, heavily-armed, communist country constantly and flagrantly violates human rights. Its economy will surpass our own to become the world’s largest in about twenty years, and in spite of increased trade and diplomacy, our hopes for democratic reform are naïve at best as their active protectionism and admirably slippery pragmatism suggest that they’ll never relinquish power.

Another ‘communist’ country (actually just a wackjob dictatorship) is vehemently anti-American, has been caught red-handed covertly shipping ground-to-air missiles to a terrorist-harboring country, has nothing at all to lose by nuking their neighbors, and is run by a deluded porn freak with a pompadour that would embarrass Elvis who inherited the position from his father. Oh, and they just tested a nuclear warhead and bragged about it to the world.

A third country is watching very closely what the US does about crazy country number 2’s nuclear test because they probably want to develop their own nuclear arsenal to prop up their Muslim fundamentalist, anti-US theocracy. They stand to reap huge benefits from the growing instability in the Middle East and Iraq in particular and would be more than happy to fill any void left by us if we don’t respond to the requests from area leaders for consistent, overarching direction.

So what do we do in response? Screw with Cuba. It’s as if there was a 300 lb. pedophile on steroids and PCP down on the corner, shooting randomly into the crowd, and the cops screeched up on the lawn at the opposite end of the block, marshaled their forces, and socked a mouthy nine-year-old in the eye.

No wonder the world thinks we’re a bunch of clueless, double-talking morons.