Editorial: When you follow
world news daily, you begin to see patterns that tell you where the
hot spots are around the world that Americans should pay attention
to - even those of us living in Summerton S.C. So, cutting thru all the news and noise, look over the list of hot
spots below. Most of the areas of concern seem to involve
'closed' tribal societies led by dictators. Poverty and ignorance are
key characteristics of these areas. For example:
Obviously, Russia
under Putin is a major concern. You have an egomaniac on the loose
who has access to nuclear weapons and military forces he is willing
to use to further his vision of recreating the Russian empire. As a
result, he's creating situations on a wide range of fronts to
distract everyone the world as he strengthens his power, wealth, and
pursues his agenda – one that appeals to many of his people.
Fortunately, most of the world is seeing thru Mr. Putin and prepared
for a wide range of counter actions. He's definitely not as smart as
he thinks.
The Mid-East
remains another major hot spot to carefully watch and avoid getting
dragged in to far. Fortunately, our policy under President Obama is
keeping our ground forces out of the war and is working with a global
coalition to contain and counter threats from this area. Letting
mid-eastern countries clean up their own mess that emerged from
providing support to different groups of crazy Islamist terrorists is
a must. They must collectively decide if they want to live a thousand
years in the past, or move into the future along with the rest of the
globe.
Pakistan and
Afghanistan remain another major problem area that is dominated
by fanatic Islamists that also remain tied to a closed tribal culture
best suited to life a thousand years ago. Extreme poverty an
ignorance also guarantee this will remain a hot spot for decades that
the rest of the world will need to watch carefully.
A wide swath of
territory across Central Africa is also an area the world
needs to watch carefully. Nations that make up the African Union will
need to take concerted, long term action to clean up the wars being
fostered by closed tribal societies with a strong bent towards
Islamic extremism in most instances, e.g. Boko Haram. Again, poverty and ignorance
guarantee this area will remain a hot spot for decades to come.
North Korea,
another closed society dominated by unstable leadership, remains a
hot spot. They are a wild card that is hard to predict – except you
know they are going to do something crazy. Russia will no doubt seek
to maneuver them into being a distraction to the world as Putin goes
about carrying out his plans.
Closer to home,
Mexico, Venezuela and a few other Central and South American
countries dominated by dictators and drug cartels must be carefully
watched and handled. Having 80,000 people killed next door in Mexico,
as the drug wars proceed, is more of a threat to the US than many
citizens understand. Failed US foreign policies have propped up these
dictators and helped the drug cartels to grow rich and powerful. The
US is shifting policies and must turn the situation around over the
coming decades.
Nations across much
of Europe and Asia have embraced more 'open' policies as they
have grown their economies, educated their people, embraced various
forms of democracy, adopted new technologies, and joined other
advanced 'open' societies across the globe. The key threat there
seems to be one that could be caused by the large influx of
immigrants from 'closed' Islamic citizen groups that refuse to adapt
and integrate into society.
Civilization has
come a long way in improving life across the globe in a relatively
short period of time – several hundred years. But, we still have a
long way to go. Again, cutting thru all the news and noise, you can
clearly see the hot spots around the world. You can also see the
major roots of the problems that must continue to be addressed –
primarily education, poverty, religious fanaticism, 'closed' tribal
thinking, and governments led by dictators.
We have a lot of
progress that needs to be made over the next 100 years – if we
don't destroy our planet along the way.
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