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About Me
- Unforced Rhythms of Grace
- Michael is ...a 40-something Michgander who likes movies, television, coffee, women, and song. He's been described as having "a laconic, dry, sense of humor", which might be an understatement. He has a wide array of interests, likes almost all varieties of music to some degree or another, and will try just about anything once (except for asparagus). He wouldn't mind if the U.S. national anthem was replaced by "Louis, Louis". He believes that if you break your shoelace while you're getting dressed for work, you should get a free day off because it's always downhill from there. He loves the smell of the city right after it's rained. He thinks that the English language is fun because there's no correct way to write the sentence, "There are three ways to write the word 'to'." He believes that Diet Dr. Pepper really does taste just like regular Dr. Pepper.
5 comments:
My concern is that Newt is simply peddling fear not offering solutions. How do you win a war on terrorism? It is very different from beating a country like Germany of Japan militarily.
I Iraq we made no progress until we worked on winning hearts and minds and developing relationships with tribal leaders. Now they are making progress. It took them six years to figure this out? Military strength alone does not win a war against guys with IEDs who are willing to die to inflict damage. You need to reduce their reasons to hate you by being smart and working both ends of the snake. We actually put their entire army on the street unemployed. No wonder they joined the insurgents. Why not. They were unemployed in a war torn country. They had to do something.
I think how you win a war against terrorism is to marginalize the terrorists and work on winning the hearts and minds of the people they recruit.
In Iran most of the population loves America and hates George Bush. Were we to go in there they would be forced to fight for their country. When was the last time a country that we had economic and cultural relationships with us attack us?
Most of these people want our lives. Since they can't have them under corrupt rulers that we all too often support, they will do anything they can to get out of opression. The best thing we have done for Osama is to attack Iraq and buddy up with the oppressive Saudis and Egyptians. Osama has no problem recruiting oppressed people now. The governments of Saudi and Egypt actually help him by doing nothing or sending money, as it keeps their people from focusing on their own corrupt dictatorships.
Michael, I worry that we are failing to lead the world towards a better place. We walk around like bullies and say, we will not talk to anyone until they do this or that. We are playing into the hands of the extreamists. They don't want us talking, they want to stay in power by demonizing us. Our government is doing the same thing at our end to unify us against them. Once you get past the dictators and nuts in power you end up with everday people struggling to survive. They all want a better life. We do to.
Heaven forbid we figure out why 19 Saudi's got on planes and flew them into our city. Have we done anything to get to the root of the problem after seven years? Nope, the problem is worse now than ever. We had the sympaty of the world then. We have their disgust now. I think we played right into Osama's hands. I picture him sitting around in some cave saying "man I can't do much with them over their, but if I could get them into a ground war hear, I could bog them down."
By being a ready enemy we facilitate these crazys. For example, Cuba could never have stayed communist if we had not given Fidel someone to demonize for 40 years. He could say, "look at the Americans, they are making your lives worse." Fidel needed an enemy and we were happy to fit the bill. Imagine if we had not been his foil for propaganda. Imagine if we had allowed people living here to send money to their families and form business relationships with Cubans. Do you think Fidel could have used us as an argument for austerity for so long? I don't think it would have worked.
I am not saying lay down our arms, I am saying let's be smart about this and use some carrots along with the sticks.
One last point. If Americans are so worried about illegal immigration then why has no one gone to Mexico to have a summit meeting to discuss the problem. Instead we are building a wall that will not work, but some contractor will make a bundle and donate some of the profits to a campaign. We need to get real. We need to stop thinking in overly simplified terms and start dealing with very complex issues. We need to do what works not just makes us feel good and powerful.
Sorry for the long post, you apparently hit a hot button.
Why is it I always see a ton of spelling errors after I post. Sorry, I did go to college believe it or not.
Andrew, I am glad I hit a button. I do appreciate your points of veiw and get something from it. You make some excellent points. And I believe many are valid. But I can't help but feel after reading it, that we are the bad guys. I know that is not what you are saying, but it comes across like that. If only we did this, that would not have happened. If only we did things different regarding Cuba, this would have been different.
Even under Clinton there was numerous terrorist attacks. And his foreign policy was certainly much different than Bush's. Yet, still, North Korea was building up a potential nuclear device, Iran and Iraq were not our friends and on and on. You asked if we have figured out why 19 Saudi's flew planes into our buildins? Who knows? And who cares? Because I don't think there reasons are anything that is rational. Nor do I think we can reason with those people.
Andrew, we may sooner figure out what triggered Steven Phillip Kazmierczak to murder NIU students then take his own life than find out why the terrorist want to kiss Americans.
As far as spelling...I am not going to re-read my comment. It probably barely resembles english!
I absolutely agree with you. When I am on a rant I just go. You bring up an important point which helps me codify my thoughts here.
I think the middle east has at least three groups in general: the people, the dictators, the nuts/terrorists. The vast majority are the people. We are finally working with the people in Iraq to get rid of the nuts. All too often we start with the dictator and make him a friend, we then move to the nuts and try to kill them, only when none of that works do we settle on the ugly step sister and engage the people.
I am simply saying that we should reverse this. Do everything in our power to work on the people. Ask this question before we do something. "What effect will this have on the people? Will it help them improve their lives?
I am suggesting that if we start with the people, and consider them in our foreign policy decisions; if we at least attempt to put them first when we can, then we might have better luck getting rid of the nuts and dictators.
I am not saying that in general our hearts are not in the right place, but our strategy of top down is to simplistic. We think that we can just cut off the head and the snake will take care of itself. It does not seem to work very well, and never has when dealing with non governmental agents like terrorists and despots.
If our decisions overtly put the people of a country first then the people see us as helping them more than their dictators and terrorists. That puts the nuts and despots in an untennable position.
I am not simple minded. This strategy is not black and white or easy or short term. It takes time and consistancy of polocy over many administrations. But, in the end I believe it will work better on many levels.
An example: Iraq
We went in to cut off the head, Saddam. We never asked how the people were making a living. It turns out that Saddam was employing a great deal of the country. The army was on the payroll etc. Why didn't we ask ourselves how these people would survive if we cut him out? How were these people going to make a living if we got rid of the employer?
Another thing. We allowed the crazy element to ransack the people's places, its museums, agencies, power plants, etc. What message did this send to the people? It does not take a genius to understand that the people got worried. One nut had been replaced by anarchy. We just sat back and watched. Rumsfeld actuall said "the next person who trys to talk to me about what we do after the military operation will be fired." Was he focused on the dictator or the people? That is all I am saying.
"The best thing we have done for Osama is to attack Iraq and buddy up with the oppressive Saudis and Egyptians"
In a situation of hard choices, this is the best choice, really. The democratic opposition that is being kept at bay by the Saudi and Egyptian government is extremely hardline, extreme Islamic. Much worse than the two governments.
"We actually put their entire army on the street unemployed. No wonder they joined the insurgents. Why not. They were unemployed in a war torn country. They had to do something."
That is still no excuse for joining absolutely-unjustified terrorists. Maybe if they took up basketweaving. After all, the reaction to unemployment in more civilized countries is not "let's go bomb the civilian marketplace"
Osama hates us for doing the right thing. He has no valid criticisms. The US insists in the rights of the Israelis to live. This also plays into Osama's hands, right?, because he wants to exterminate them. Like with the other situation, I don't want to do the wrong thing here just to make Osama happy.
(Or make Iran happy, for that matter. How do you negotiate with a country whose number one foreign policy goal is exterminating Jews/Israelis? Say "Here. Why don't you kill a million of them. The rest get to live. Can your bloodlust be satisfied with this, and you stop your holy war?")
They don't hate us because we do bad things. They hate us because we oppose bad things.
Can you possibly imagine a "Carrot" to be used with Osama bin Laden?
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