Replies

Thats exactly why we need a gunslinger who is not afraid of offending anybody as long as they are doing the right thing.

I am going to have to play Devil's Advocate with that statement.

Tell me, seriously, have you never experienced the schadenfreude of having someone offend you but then ask you to do them a favor?

If you really think the only way to kick a nation's ass is to send out the tanks in, then you stopped paying attention when sanctions were introduced to punish Cuba. There's nothing so sweet as to have someone come to you for a favor, and making the bastard grovel.

If America had the natural resources to be completely self-sufficient, it could afford to offend anybody and everybody on the world stage. But it's not self-sufficient and unless you go back to horses and carts it never will be. Why do you think you do deals with Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, and China, and Russia? BECAUSE YOU BLOODY HAVE TO!

So, having your top politicians offending those nations egregiously, purely to satisfy the flag-waving parochialists, already would harm American interests.

Suppose a President Did The Right Thing to bring hi-tech manufacturing jobs back to the USA but the manner of doing it offended the Chinese to such an extent thatthey just flat-out refuse to supply you with the rare earth metals to make the industry capable of functioning? China's entirely within its rights to decide not to export rare earth metals to the USA, or do so in very small quantities at very high prices. What would you do in retaliation? Stop them buying Hollywood movies? It's not a situation you could go to war for, because the day you decide to fight China for behaving like a capitalist nation and doing something capitalist America would do in a heartbeat if the tables were turned, the credibility of your nation as a supporter of free market ideals would be flushed down the toilet.

Your politicians can piss off the Russians and the Iraqis and the South Americans as much as they want if it satisfies a flag-waving PR imperative and keeps the proles shouting "hoo ya", and you can seek out new sources in Alaska, and you can even think they're pussies for not doing anything when your politicians are doing it... but at the moment you still need to import oil and you need security of supply, and they all know it. And, that does mean you have to keep holding your noses and trading with the Saudis and other people you'd probably rather just tell to take a hike.

Some OPEC members are just biding their time for the one day you really, really need to stockpile lots of the stuff and have to go to the nations you've been insulting for years, for their help.