So Obama has asked for another $83BN for funding in Afghanistan and the left is rightfully angry at this. It seems as though he's going to throw all his eggs in one basket like Bush did. Bush is pretty recent history I would think and for Obama to ignore his failure is complete stupidity. We might have upwards of 70,000+ troops in Afghanistan by the end of next year. That's a huge number and history has shown that anybody who puts their eggs in the Afghan basket comes out with not only no eggs, but no basket as well. The Soviets went into Afghanistan to "liberate" them and they came back with a beating almost equal to the Vietnamese beating the US took. When you make this argument to some Americans, they come up with "Well we're not trying to govern them" or something to that extent. It doesn't matter what official US policy is, all that matters to the Afghan people is that it looks like we're trying to run their lives and they won't like it.
Alot of people bring up the fact that they might attack us again if we don't fight them there. "How would you fight terrorism then?" is the question that gets asked to those that want all US troops out of the middle east. The start has to be to withdraw all US troops from that part of the world. If you do that, you cut recruit numbers down to the bare bones. Then you must work with the middle east in dealing with their economic problems. The oil states in that country have a much higher GDP than most of the other states combined even though the oil states have a population of around 14 million. Poverty breeds insurgents and when you create a fairer economy for all of the middle east then you would have a much less likely chance of encountering terrorims in the west. The 3rd thing we could do is to get a real solution to the Palestine/Israel crisis. No more defending Israel no matter what they do. We need to work with both Hamas and the PA to work out solutions. A 2 state solution is key for a lasting peace in that specific part of the middle east. It also wopuldn't hurt to work on peace agreement with Hizbullah and Syria. With the recent election of Netanyahu though, this will be extremely difficult, but certainly workable for somebody with the Diplomatic skills of Clinton and it would seem Obama. The last thing we need to do is to work with Iran on issues that we both agree on. Nobody wants terrorims on their front doorstep and Iran has shown a willingness in the past to help the US work out problems in the middle east. If we can find common ground with the Iranians and give them a powerful role in the middle east, peacefully of course, then we might finally see some great Iranian work being done in that region. I don't like Achminejad as much as the next guy, but we must work with enemies as well as allies.
If we can doo all of these things and more, we can see a peaceful solution to middle eastern problems and finally eradicate or nearly eradicate Fundementalism. We must stop kissing ass to the Israelis and Saudis as they have done us no good in that region. Our enemies now, can most certainly be allies of the future if we play our cards right.
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Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires for a reason.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, poverty is not necessarily correlated with terrorism. The 9/11 hijackers, the Bali suicide bombers, and many top officials in al-Qa'ida are college-educated men. I mean, shit, Mohammed Atta was an engineer (I made a joke at someone who was an engineer and said, you know who else are engineers? TERRORISTS!) and bin Laden had a degree in business. They've done studies where they correlated a high education with a greater propensity to participate in Hizballah. Of course I still believe most of the "worker bees" tend to be impoverished and the college-educated ones get the most devious plans.
Get those oil states to tax, lol. Taxes are associated with democratization and greater say in government, but don't tell the libtardians that. Look at the most free countries and they have high levels of taxation. Look at the poorest countries and they're like taxes wut?
I personally believe that the root of terrorism is not poverty but injustice. Why did the Sicariis kill Romans? Because they felt a sense of injustice. Why did the Hashashins terrorize? Injustice. Some dude in my class said "I feel a sense of injustice" and I wanted to tell him to kindly shut the fuck up since Laqueur and Crenshaw, two of the most foremost experts on terrorism, agree with me. I think that dude's a Republican. I want to tell him like I told my science teacher, you know Republicans don't care for us brown folk.
Anyway. I'm straying off topic. I told you I did a big ass paper on AIPAC, right? That could have been Q. I forgot. But the Israeli lobby is one of the most influential lobbies in the US. In terms of lobbying power, it's the AARP then the NRA then AIPAC. Obama is not going to go full force into a two-state solution. Jews may compose 2% of the population but they compose 25% of the contributions to the DNC. Alienating such a huge component of your party is a really REALLY bad idea.