Of course the government lies. Hell people lie to the government. The only question is who did it first and it doesn't really matter because no one will ever know.
Everybody lies at some point, that’s not the point, nor is who started really the point.
The point is that the government is the one writing and enforcing laws in society. That carries power with it, and as the old adage says with power comes responsibility. That’s been a huge problem with US government in recent years; these seems to be no problem with using, abusing, and just plain throwing around power, but very little responsibility guiding it. A large portion of the world would probably agree on that.
So following the example of who ‘started it’, it’s the government’s responsibility to ‘start it’; start with a moral example. And it also starts with the big business that is lobbying to them and helping them get in office; an arena where these is barely any morality at all.
Don’t dictate law, policy, or morality to me if you have no intention of upholding it yourself. The problem lies in the fact that many of us (rightly) see government as a bloated, self-serving machine bogged down under its own weight. If they intend to lie to the people just because the people can lie too, well, then that’s a copout and proof they had every intention of doing it anyway. If our leaders want to be leaders, then they need to
be leaders.
A boss I had and very much respected instilled in my the idea of address the problem, don't waste time trying to assign blame; with our country, as well as with Somalia, I think a lot of time can be saved by not wasting time on fingerpointing, but trying to get to the root of the respective problems and working on a fix.
Which brings me back to the point that I still maintain about the Somalian pirate situation - policing waters for the safety of our own shipping freighters is good, but to work to develop a stable government in Somalia that can take the crackdown on piracy into its own hands would be far better. Treating the problem, not merely a symptom.
A good maxim to live by, but plugging it into Inkidu’s argument, much of the powers-that-be are very happy with things as they are. They have no intention of changing their policies. Eight failed years with the Bush administration, Halliburton and their ilk only define the ‘problem’ as everyone else; i.e., anyone and anything standing in the way of their goals.
The problem with Somalia is going to be a complex one; a good slice of population will resent a Western involvement or presence in their country, no matter the reason or the outcome. I can understand this from a certain viewpoint; as a citizen of the US, if foreign troops were ‘keeping order’ in my hometown, I’d very likely be setting roadside bombs and sniping at them too. Even this idea of hired help for the government wouldn’t wash. I would have been watching Blackwater with a very hard eye were I in New Orleans post-Katrina. I don’t recognize a bunch of yahoos with guns from North Carolina as an authority even if the president himself marched into the town with them.
Committing to surgical strikes to get rid of pirate bases of operation; yes. Putting masses of troops into Somalia to police it for years; no. Whatever aid that goes there should be given as tools to help Somalia get on its feet with a stable government, with the warning that those rebuilding Somalia do it responsibly or we’re going to take them out as well.
