More imports from China are apparently tainted (see US: Chinese Seafood Detained for Safety). This is the latest in an alarmingly high number of "accidents" related to imports from China. I wonder how serious this really is. By that I mean that the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department consistently downplay terrorist threats and security issues we have with other countries. This can be because there are sources and methods that should remain secret. However, when it comes to trade relations with countries like China or Saudi Arabia, the State Department is too kind and certainly will not air the real truth. When it comes to major trading partners, the U.S. would rather avoid ruffling feathers.
To me, we have lost our moral backbone and use diplomacy to excuse bad behavior from trading partners. Carefully worded press conferences avoid calling oppression by its name. The two best examples I can think of are China and Saudi Arabia, because of their blatant oppression of their own citizens or overt actions against U.S. interests.
China is a communist country, which means by definition it suppresses dissidence and oppresses its citizens. Family homes are torn down and the occupants are left homeless to make room for Western-style development managed by the government. Medical patients are experimented on like lab rats so the government can claim medical breakthroughs. Organs are even harvested from some otherwise healthy patients. Children work as slaves in mining operations.
How does the United States respond to all of these things? By ignoring them of course. We allow American companies to do business there because we think it helps everybody. What we are doing is something we never did for the Soviet Union: we are fueling the government's ability to remain stable, perpetrating the oppression and the power-hungry tyrants running the country.
Saudi Arabia, while not communist is far from being a free society. I laugh at the comparisons of the U.S. to the government in Orwell's 1984. Jimmy Carter's insulting "apartheid" label applied to Israel is more stupid than funny. However, when you take those comparisons and apply them to Saudi Arabia, they actually fit.
Saudi Arabia may provide us oil, but they also provide many of the gears in the international human trafficking machine. This is a country that arrests people for being Christians too close to Mecca. They have religious police that make sure the country doesn't celebrate holidays like Valentine's Day. Its wealth waters the seeds of international terrorism, mostly indirectly of the government, but in a country where they somehow know if you're a Jew or Christian approaching Mecca, I find it hard to believe the government can't get a handle on terrorists like they can Valentine's Day cards.
What bothers me is how the United States claims to promote democracy while flat out ignoring the tyranny of our trading partners. I don't believe in the New World Order Illuminati conspiracy; it would be nice if it where that simple. The reality is hard to comprehend because it requires looking at cultures and how they relate.
One of the most devastating organizations to our national interests is the United Nations. It treats all countries as equal and they are obviously not. They want to remain neutral and not condemn any country too harshly (unless it's the United States) while at the same time embezzling money and supporting a good-old-boy network of diplomats who care nothing for their own people. The UN sits in New York as an ivory tower monument to elitism and cultural snobbery. When countries like Angola, Egypt, Qatar, Azerbaijan, and Cuba as well as the previously mentioned China and Saudi Arabia, everyone knows it's a sham.
One thing the United Nations is good at is PR–it's because of those diplomatic skills. The UN has become the de facto organization to solve all of Earth's problems. It chips away at its member nations' sovereignty while emboldening tyrannies to continue their paths of oppression, genocide, and military aggression. In the end, it's an organization of hypocrites and pompous arrogance. We defer to the UN when it comes to these trading partners. Iraq wasn't really a major trading partner of ours and had little influence in the UN. George Bush was more emboldened to stand up to the UN. Imagine the United States rocking the UN boat over issues with China or Saudi Arabia. I can't because of their powerful influence on the rest of the representatives there. By the way, Iraq was a major trading partner of France leading to their condemnation of an attack there; the US isn't the only one to ignore evil to continue a stream of income.
Another factor in our complacence with these trading partners is the public acceptance of multiculturalism and political correctness. Like the UN, multiculturalism dictates that all cultures are equal; it's bad form to say one culture is better than another. In the case of China, why don't we separate the long, distinguished Chinese culture from Communist culture? It is possible to respect many aspect of Chinese culture while condemning the government and those who drive the oppression of the Chinese. As for Saudi Arabia, they use money to deflect criticism. They hire U.S. PR firms to gloss over their image. Apparently this slight-of-hand is working because Bush likes to hold hands with the Princes.
Finally, American culture doesn't take security seriously. I can't think of a better example than all of the secrets given to China under Clinton's watch that received so little media attention, most Americans have no idea of the devastation caused. Recently, the CIA and Pentagon leaks to the New York Times and other media outlets have caused very little outrage regarding the actual leak. In addition, Americans don't seem to fully grasp what a nuclear Iran or North Korea means for them. China is much more of a threat, however. Communism is like Sharia law. It's proponents want it in place of free, capitalist societies. China seems to be patient and meticulous–something the USSR never was.
Just like good security in the IT world is to have backups of data in safe places, national security means to have viable alternatives to keep our country sovereign and independent. Yet our actions keep us in the stranglehold of foreign oil dependence when we could be providing our own oil. In Gerald L. Posner's Secrets of the Kingdom, Posner discusses how Saudi oil wells are rigged to explode in the case of a military invasion. Sure it's in the Saudi's self-interest to protect their only real export. However, they use this oil to make us walk this fine diplomatic line of non-judgement and acceptance of their ways. I think we spend more money, time, and energy on making nice with the stone ages than we do just getting our own oil from our own resources.
I don't like they way that America has become this lame, non-judgmental nation just for the sake of keeping good relations with trading partners. Our diplomacy philosophy is archaic and provides us with nothing as we give ourselves away to our enemies. We don't have black and white standards for acceptable behavior. We condemn small nations like Cuba for the same things the Chinese government perpetrates. We invade Afghanistan and Iraq, but ignore Iran and Syria as real terrorist beehives. I also still can't figure out why we condemn Hamas, but Fatah is okay for U.S. dollars. These inconsistencies are going to destroy us because it renders our diplomacy strategies as impotent and emboldens our enemies to continue undermining us with zero consequences.
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