My future father-in-law and I had a heated political debate this weekend which began with the TSA pat downs and ended in an argument about America’s strategy against terrorism.
Heated arguments with the future father-in-law are not unusual given my tendencies to be politically outspoken...thank god Kaitlyn is patient and puts up with me (albeit she does have her limits as many of you know).
I was arguing that we are getting patted down (IMO, huge violation of privacy and I'm completely against the TSA's new inspection procedures) because we are afraid of terrorists attacking us. But why do terrorists want to attack us?
I stood by my usual MO...our efforts to “get” the terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan end up creating more terrorists because we have accidentally killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, Afghanis and Pakistanis. Imagine you live in one of these three countries...when a member of your family or friends are killed by Americans, would you be more or less likely to join your neighboor's jihadist club? Arguably more likely. If your Iraqi brother was killed by an American missile, troop, etc. how would you react? Most likely you would want America to leave Iraq because of the horrible event that just occurred. But you don’t have a voice because your government is more dysfunctional than Americas (imagine that). So what do you do? Strap a bomb to your chest to make a point and hopefully take someone down with you?
Now let’s look at the macro level, who has killed more of who? Have Muslim extremists killed more U.S. civilians through acts of terror, or have more Muslim civilians been killed by U.S. actions in the name of fighting terrorism? I added up the deaths of 9/11 plus any deaths associated with the Iraq and Afghan wars…and counted ~7,500. Then I added up the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians in just the first year of Occupation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and the number is over 12,000, according to Iraq Body Count. Think about it, that’s more innocent Iraqi civilians dead in one year due to a war that we got suckered into because of WMDs and “Iraq’s involvement in 9/11”, which both turned out to be lies (thank you G.W. Bush). WMDs and 9/11 are a shitty reason for American to, directly or indirectly, be involved with 12,000 dead civilians in 2003 (a total of ~100,000 innocent Iraqis have died since OIF). That’s a lot of pissed off people that don’t have much of a voice but may have a crazy jihadist neighbor.
So I believe our war campaigns abroad, combined with our global military empire (730 military bases in 130 countries) only create future terrorists, promote hatred of America, and therefore only aggravate the problem. Plus, the costs associated with servicing a global military empire are helping bankrupt our country (What’s the IRR on a bomb? What’s the IRR on our 730 military bases? Arguably a very poor investment with our scarce resources.) War isn’t a good investment with our money (i.e. tax dollars).
The rant below is an extrapolation of my thoughts from this weekend:
Read the article first, especially what he says about our 30,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.
Now if we weren't involved everywhere in the world, including S. Korea, we could react quicker to assholes like Kim-Jong-Il and have a louder, more respectable voice in the global political arena.
If we didn't have our military tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan, we could kick the shit out of North Korea in two weeks, and still have money left over to rebuild Seoul. Rather we prefer to waste money fighting 3rd world "terrorists" (and killings thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians, which directly creates more people who hate us, aka terrorists...oh the irony). Don't forget, Bush lied to us about WMDs in Iraq, we are in another unconstitutional war in Afghanistan; we wage another unconstitutional war against Pakistan (and give their corrupt regime BILLIONS of OUR money); and there exists another war against our liberties and freedoms (Patriot Act, TSA pat downs, whatever comes next designed to "protect" us...it's a slippery slope).
Some battles are worth fighting...fighting 3rd world, extremist assholes door-to-door is not a battle I want to fight. I'd much rather take out North Korea and Iran's crazy leaders than some losers in the third world (Iraq and Afghanistan). Side note: America gave Iran a voice by removing Saddam from power. Now Iran doesn't need to worry about their crazy next-door neighbor and can focus on funding and training Iraqi extremists to kill our troops and ally with the Iraqi tribes! Oh the irony is stinging now!!
Stupid stupid stupid foreign policy decisions begin with a shoot first - ask questions later reaction, and end in a painful defeat, a lousy economy, debt, death, and something worse than disco and punk rock.
Challenge conventional thinking.
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