Re-reporting, excerpting, editing with comment by Carolyn Bennett

Brain drain, blood drain - we've got both Choose to believe what is believable on the evidence

In Reinventing Collapse, Dmitry Orlov says the old Soviet Union - you will remember the Soviets took their turn in Afghanistan before the Americans - "operated a huge military and political empire but, paradoxically, failed to derive any economic benefit from it, running the entire enterprise at a net loss."

U.S. Labor, innovation, knowhow, competency lost - 'Brain drain'
"One major difference [between the U.S. and USSR's labor situation] is that the Soviet Union was entirely self-sufficient when it came to skilled labor. Both before and after the collapse, skilled labor was one of its main exports, along with oil, weapons and industrial machinery. Not so with the United States, where not only is most of the manufacturing being carried out abroad, but a lot of service back home is being provided by immigrants.

"This runs the gamut from farm labor, landscaping and office cleaning to the professions, such as engineering and medicine, without which society and its infrastructure would unravel. Most of these people came to the United States to enjoy the superior standard of living - for as long as it remains superior. Many of them will eventually head home, leaving a gaping hole in the [U.S.] social fabric."

In U.S. companies, there is a particular "constancy in the staffing profile. At the top, there is a group of highly compensated senior lunch-eaters. They tend to spend all of their time pleasing each other in various ways, big and small. They often hold advanced degrees in disciplines such as Technical Schmoozing and Relativistic Bean counting. They are obsessive on the subject of money and cultivate a posh country set atmosphere, even if they are just one generation out of the coal mines. Ask them to solve a technical problem and they will politely demur, often taking the opportunity to flash their wit with a self-deprecating joke or two.

"Somewhat further down the hierarchy are the people who actually do the work. They tend to have fewer social graces and communication skills, but they do know how to get the work done. Among them are found the technical innovators, who are often the company's raison d'être. More often than not, the senior lunch-eaters at the top are [U.S. born] Americans. More often than not, the ones lower down are either visiting foreigners or immigrants. …

"The [U.S. born] Americans at the top always try to standardize the job descriptions and lower the pay scale of the immigrants at the bottom, playing them against each other, while trying to portray themselves as super-achieving entrepreneurial mavericks who can't be pinned down to a mere set of marketable skills. The opposite is often the case: the [U.S. born Americans] are often the commodity items, and would perform similar functions whether their business were biotechnology or salted fish, while those who work for them may be unique specialists, doing what has never been done before.

"… All their lives the [U.S. born] Americans were told to expect prosperity without end, and so they felt safe in joining professions that are mere embroidery on the fabric of an affluent society.

"The process became known as the 'brain drain'- America's extraction of talent from foreign lands, to its advantage and their detriment. This flow of brain power is likely to reverse direction, leaving the United States even less capable of finding ways to cope with its economic predicament. This may mean that even in areas where there will be ample scope for innovation and development, such as restoration of rail service, or renewable energy, America may find itself without the necessary talent to make it happen."

"Over the past several years," the U.S. President orated last night in his speech to the nation, "we have lost that balance [between and among national programs]. We've failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy."

It is, rather, the investment in war and corruption in Washington and abroad extending back decades - and continued by this president - that has contributed to a depression that is far from over.

He continued to pour it on (the transcript reads): "In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our neighbors and friends are out of work and struggle to pay the bills. Too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we can't simply afford to ignore the price of these wars."

Why don't I believe this transparently feigned sincerely?

Does anybody believe this stuff? The president's "Way forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan" speech is drivel from writers who either stayed up too late or were under the influence of a terribly potent substance; or both. The White House is indeed operating in a state of "disconnect."

While advancing precedents of leading war citizens Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon-Clinton-Bush I-II (to name a few) and ramming U.S. "values" down other countries' throats, the current mouthpiece in Washington announces they are going to kill a whole lot more people all the while saving the world and helping these poor folk realize their "potential."

"What's at stake is the security of our allies and the common security of the world," the president said. "Unlike the great powers of old [though], we have not sought world domination." BALDERDASH!!

"We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might [religious 'righteousness' over justice and human rights?], and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes." POPPYCOCK!!

Pouring on Potential, Prosperity for all

"Going forward, the Pakistan people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan's security and prosperity [What "prosperity" is this?] long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed."

There are so many clichés in this speech (transcript) that it makes you want to scream and keep on screaming.

It is sad indeed that a national/international figure would read a text reducing "prosperity" to killing people and investing in "stuff" that kills people all the while claiming to be for nuclear nonproliferation.

"I have made it a central pillar of my foreign policy to secure loose nuclear materials from "terrorists" [which 'terrorists' are these?], the president said, "to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and to pursue the goal of a world without them."

"We have forged a new beginning between America and the Muslim world - one that recognizes our mutual interest in breaking a cycle of conflict, and that promises a future in which those who kill innocents are isolated [the last thing international relations needs is festering isolation] by those who stand up for peace and prosperity and human dignity." Muslims don't believe a word of this nor should they.

"Our [U.S.] prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy [what diplomacy is that?]. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry." Which industry? the military/mercenary industry?

The president's declarations seem contradictory to me. I don't understand how you respect people and advance their good by killing them, taking over their country (as the U.S. has done in Iraq and other places), and planning to kill more of them. This is utter nonsense.

Furthermore in that the United States under leadership from Washington has failed miserably to help Americans realize their potential and prosper in real terms - how in the name of horseradish does it expect anyone to believe that it gives a fig about any other nation's people? The United States has deliberately "failed," gutted and displaced states and peoples. The unvarnished truth is there is no intent whatsoever to help anyone; only to spout nonsense and hope it satisfies the suckers and paymasters through the next campaign and election cycle.

The Commander in "Change" opened his mouth and Nine-eleven-Nine-eleven kept popping out. For eight years, we heard this stuff. If it were not deadly serious, it would be laughable.

"We do not seek to occupy other nations," the president said. [Really?] "We will not claim another nation's resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours." [Then what are those oil companies doing in Nigeria and Iraq leaving the poor sick and poorer and why are all those Muslims in prison?] "What we have fought for - what we continue to fight for - is a better future for our children and grandchildren. And we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity."

The people of Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq or anywhere else don't need Washington to "free" them or make war on them so that Americans can consume more. Obama is no Abraham Lincoln and these people were not enslaved – except by America's incitement to conflict and its war against and occupation of their countries. What they need is true respect and honesty, and for Washington to get forces and mercenaries and militarists off their land.

The ANSWER coalition reflects today on the "change" president.

"The day Barack Obama took the oath of office (January 20, 2009), a government helicopter carrying President George W. Bush lifted off and made the ceremonial flight away from the nation's capital, signaling the end of one era and the start of a new administration.… The official pomp in a transfer of power was met with euphoria … But was there a transfer of power?

"The personalities have changed but the institutions of militarism, war and empire remain intact." Since the start of President Obama's tenure, "the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has nearly doubled- this happened before the new deployment of 30,000 more soldiers."

Less than a year from the departure of Bush II, "there are more combined U.S. military forces occupying Iraq and Afghanistan than at any time during the George W. Bush tenure. By the middle of 2010, U.S. personnel - including official military forces, private mercenaries and other contractors- in the two countries will total nearly a half million.

"At a time of deep economic crisis, with tens of millions of people out of work and losing their homes, the cost of the wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq is already running at over $225 billion per year- $1.2 billion every two days."

Escalating the war escalates costs- in every sense of the word "cost."

"The war is not about 'the security of the people of the United States being at stake'"- Unless, of course, "security" means U.S. self destruction, the destruction of nations of the Middle East/Southwest Asia, the Horn of Africa and elsewhere; the seeding of retaliation manifest in random violence, more conflict and war.

Change will not come from the top, the Coalition says. "Real change comes from below." It comes from the millions who sense the suffering of others and are suffering themselves. It comes from the young and older. It comes from children of workers sent - by men too cowardly, corrupt and inept to engage in talking diplomacy with all and sundry for the long haul - to wound and sustain wounds, to kill and suffer death for a pack of lies.

Sources:

Dmitry Orlov's Reinventing Collapse: the Soviet Example and American Prospects (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2008, pp. 69-72)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, www.answercoalition.org

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Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett -author, independent journalist Blog: Today's Insight News Blog: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/
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Nature and Consequences of U.S. International and Domestic Affairs
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