Throughout recorded history, empires from the Romans to today have encountered two perennial problems: military defeat in Afghanistan, and a crippling trade deficit with China. Victorian and (otherwise) victorious Britain suffered the ignominious loss of an army in Afghanistan; and Roman emperors vainly passed sumptuary laws to curb the silk imports from China that were draining the Roman economy of specie.
And yet, history offers solutions to both these problems…
China first – and here the British have shown the way. Faced with a crippling outflow of specie (monetary gold and silver) to pay for tea imports, the British developed a cash crop that could be sold to China to balance the deficit: Opium.
So, in one fell swoop, the US could solve the trade deficit: First, legalise cocaine. Then, enter into an agreement with Colombia for the US to be the sole purchaser of the country’s entire crop. Then, use the WTO to force open the Chinese market – and voilà, problem solved.
As an aside, there will be enough money left over to compensate US gun manufacturers for their loss of the Mexican drug war market.
Afghanistan next – as is well known, Afghanistan is the roach motel of empires: They check in, but they don’t check out. Except one: Alexander the Great; he married Roxanne, and problem solved.
I realise that Mr. Obama is already married, but I put to you two arguments:
- Mr. Obama could convert (or simply acknowledge his life-long adherence) to Islam. Then he could easily add another wife, and maybe more.
- To those of delicate disposition who would at this point adduce Michelle Obama’s feelings, I say: Is this not a situation where any red-blooded American would gladly renounce their selfish thoughts for the sake of the greater good of the fatherland?
It is also immediately obvious why this possibility only opened up under President Obama; as despicable individuals as Mullah Omar and Osama bin Ladin may generally be, they have in common with history’s villains that they are reputed to be adoring parents. Which self-respecting patriarch would deliver even the least of his innumerable daughters into the clutches of Dick Cheney?
Therefore I say unto you: Despair not! Hopeless as the situation may seem, the solutions are there for the taking by those who dare!