Freedom will rule?

There was an incident the other day when United States Senator, Marco Rubio, was giving a speech when he suddenly realised that he had lost the last page of his script. This led to all the usual comments about him needing to use a teleprompter.

Following the story, I picked up an online video-recording of this incident. The losing of the last page did not particularly interest me. What I did notice was rather the content that preceded it.

This was a speech on foreign policy. Mr Rubio, a Republican, was informing his audience how with a new Republican administration, many countries would experience "freedom" as they had never done before - at least something on those lines.

It would be interesting to know where. Mr Rubio is a Cuban American, so of course Cuba would be top of the list. Getting rid of the Castro (Mark 2) regime for starters. Maybe they could go back to what they had before the revolution led by Castro (Mark 1)?

Not recommended actually, Castro overthrew another (but non-Communist) dictatorship led by Fulgencio Batista, who after losing a democratic election in 1952 decided that he had won anyway. The major investors in Batista's Cuba were led by Meyer Lansky, a major player in, would you believe, the Mafia. Still the Mafia are not what they were, and so a democratic election in Cuba and the people there might become as affluent as the people in most other Caribbean nations (Haiti for example).

Could this happen? Republican administrations have had the habit over the years of invading other people's countries without being asked - don't write it off, but as they haven't tried in recent years, why now?

Where else? Iran? Maybe? Iran does hold (rigged) elections already, but given the choice of more liberal candidates, everything would be different? Smile, utter the words "wishful thinking" and check out that fundamentalist Islamic parties have won the elections in Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian territories in the past few years. While the intelligentsia in Teheran might want a more liberal regime, chances are that much of the rest of the country is very conservative and likes the idea of a theocracy!

Syria? Well somebody better work out what is going on there and how the country is set up before getting involved. To bear in mind though, it is not a fundamentalist Muslim country, rather a family fiefdom (Assad & Co) and secular. They need friends (nobody in the Arab world likes them, the Israelis hate them usw), which is why they are very chummy with Iran.

North Korea? Well if anywhere does need help .... The country's major ally is the People's Republic (i.e. the chronic dicatorship of) China. The Chinese are apparently fed up with the North Koreans (the attempt to take over the world economy by fair means, or usually foul, in which the Chinese are indulging is upset by this alliance with the North Koreans).  Major issue if there were an attempt to overthrow the North Korean regime is the potential that the head cases in Pyongyang would very likely drop their one nuclear weapon on one of their neighbours (unlike the Iranians, they definitely do have one) with the expected awful consequences.

And when you have successfully invaded the place, you will have to rebuild the country from the ground up. A new united Korea. All well and good, as the new united Germany project has now been under way for 23 years, is still not complete, there is still a lot of bitterness about the low standard of living and high unemployment in the former East, and it has been a massive drag on the more prosperous West for all that time ..... And East Germany was in much better shape than North Korea is, so good luck to the South Koreans with that one.

Where else?

Did I mention China? Now that is funny! What would happen to the rate of inflation? What would happen to all those stores that sell nothing but Chinese goods these days (trying to find anything else is becoming impossible)? Before messing with China, someone had better come up with an economic contingency plan. Personally I agree with those who want to see a degree of protectionism in Europe and an end to the dumping of Chinese junk (yes, shock, horror, Marine Le Pen and I agree on something!), but I digress!

And?

Probably the places where the most need for this "freedom" exist are actually on the African continent. As most people in the advanced world  turn their eyes away every time the word "Africa" is mentioned, I would not expect Mr Rubio's vision of a bright new tomorrow to start happening there any time soon! Which IMHO rather sums his thinking up .....