-By Warner Todd Huston
Through the pessimistically, penumbrous pen of Parag Khanna, the New York Times has declared that the U.S.A. is finished. Yes, we have lost our “global hegemony” and we will find that by 2016, “America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.” Boy, it looks bad the for the good ‘ol U.S. of A., as far as the Times is concerned. My guess is that the news of our demise is being greatly exaggerated.
So, who is this Parag Khanna to whom the Times has given all this space? Well, he’s a “senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation” and guess who this organization is linked with? You guessed it: George Soros. Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros is one of those listed on the “Leadership council.” In fact, the larger portion of the Board members and other associates are journalists and left leaning activists. With a few token and so-called right leaning folks — like Francis Fukuyama and Christine Todd Whitman, neither of whom are conservatives — the Board of directors also sports such well-known names as the leftie Google king Eric Schmidt and Bernard L. Schwartz, the man responsible for transferring restricted technology to China during Clinton’s lamentable years in office.
No wonder Khanna thinks the U.S.A. is finished, look who he hangs out with!
Khanna’s piece is a ponderous one filled with many curiously off base declarations. Along with imagining that the U.S. is done for, Khanna also imagines that Turkey is a shoo-in for membership with the EU, that the EU will grow to 30 member states, that China has an uncluttered path to eclipsing America, and that Venezuela will be a shinning example of economic power for the foreseeable future. He also acts as if Islamofascism is nothing to worry about.
Ridiculously, Khanna’s sunny outlook for these troubled nations completely ignores all the internal strife that each of them is now dealing with. He seems to feel that the path to success for these nations is straight and uneventful. For instance, he almost completely ignores Islamofascism, the seminal battle of our era. Khanna apparently discounts the threat that is radical Islam, even going so far as to absurdly claim that Europe might have done enough to solve the problem. He finds it so uninteresting that he only mentions radical Islam once in his interminable piece.
Europeans use intelligence and the police to apprehend radical Islamists, social policy to try to integrate restive Muslim populations and economic strength to incorporate the former Soviet Union and gradually subdue Russia. Each year European investment in Turkey grows as well, binding it closer to the E.U. even if it never becomes a member.
Once again with the ostrich-esque idea that terrorism is merely a policing problem. But, let’s ask the Parisians if their “restive Muslim population” feels “integrated” as they burn hundreds of cars a year, prevent authorities from entering “their” areas in the Muslim Ghettos, and generally riot their way across the countryside? Let’s ask if the rioting Muslims during the Dutch Mohammed cartoon incident feel “integrated.” And this is not to even address the bombings and al Qaeda’s operations throughout Europe.
Because of the Ismaist problem, many EU states do not want to add Turkey to their super state and for good reason. Turkey is slowly edging toward radical Islamism in their government and there is no reason at all to expect this not to continue. Yet, Khanna seems to imagine that Turkey will easily become a member of the EU sometime soon.
Khanna also seems to see China’s rise as a straight line to success, ignoring all the internal strife in that nation as well as ignoring that its rosy financial outlook is a result of the communist nation’s obfuscation and propaganda as much as it is from actual success. China has far more problems than Khanna wants to acknowledge.
And his final suggestions on what to do are geared to cement our decline, not assure our safety and stability. In fact, his five suggestions are based on an America in decline each assuming that all the world’s ills are our fault and that we must step back to allow everyone else to rise above us. His chief recommendation is for any future U.S. president to stop thinking about “us” and think “we” (as in the U.S. along with the rest of the world) because the U.S. can no longer be top dog.
To fix the U.S., Khanna feels we should forget about our values, we should regionalize our State Dept. instead of running it from Washington (assuring that we further dilute our influence, by the way), and we should expand “diplomacy.” We should also fund European economies and we should sponsor a “Big Three” which would consist of China, the U.S. and the EU. But with that “Big Three” we shouldn’t be so mean as to set the agenda. We should just “suggest it,” leaving the door open for China to bully the EU into out voting us on a permanent basis.
In essence, Khanna is not describing what is coming and how to avoid it. He is describing what he wants to happen and is trying to suggest policy ideas that will make it happen.
Lets hope he is as ridiculed as he deserves to be.
Lastly, we cannot forget the crowd that Khanna and his New America Foundation runs with. They are, many of them, anti-Americans who really desire the end to American power. These are people who are not interested in helping the U.S. make its way in a changing world, but people who want the U.S. eliminated from that world.
And, naturally we can add the New York Times to that crowd.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston