I am convinced that president Bush sincerely believes his strategy for fighting terrorism is the right course. However, that doesn’t make it the best one. History is full of people who succumbed to the seduction of being “right,” but ignored what was best. Our “war on terrorism” is the current, and relevant, case in point.
Terrorism should not be “fought.” It should be ended. It cannot be ended as long as new harm is being created by either party, with each party willing to create or tolerate more new harm. That is the express lane to escalation, which is what we have right now. North Korea’s fledgling attempts at demonstrating nuclear capability is simply evidence of one more entity who wants to be recognized as a bonafide player in the harm game.
With the lives of the young men and women soldiers that he’s sending into harm’s way, the president is wagering that our military “might” will be more “right” than that of the Muslim extremists who would have us all waving the flag of Islam. The militants also think they, their cause, and their methods, are “right”. Not so either. But let’s deal with what’s happening at home.
To end terrorism, one must step away from methods that involve killing, maiming, poisoning, radiating, destroying, or otherwise creating havoc and endangering more people. Oh yes, one more thing… one must step away from fear, and the anger, hatred, and vengeance that is expressed through it.
Some would quickly say that the folks who threaten a jihad against us are expressing anger and hatred toward us, and we must defend ourselves. Yes, we should indeed protect ourselves, but not by exterminating others. We should also rethink what the word protection really means. Does it mean avoiding injury while bullets and missiles are being fired at us? Or does it mean having little risk of that possibility?
The best form of protection is relationship and friendship. In lieu of friendship, the best form of protection is harmlessness, and removing the threat thereof. In other words, setting a tone, a new standard of interaction that dramatically reduces, if not removes, the threat of harmful escalation. We haven’t tried this approach, so it would be pointless to dismiss it out of hand. We’ve been caught up in the need for vengeance, which thus far has gone unrequited. The vengeful thirst will remain unquenched no matter how many people we kill, capture, interrogate, or torture. It’s time we realize it now before raising the threat threshhold once again.
For some reason, many people who claim to be God loving, must think that God loves a fight. And, if God is all there is… and is the Unified Field in which all consciousness and reality lives, moves, and has its being… then perhaps that’s what this life’s all about; picking a good fight — with the “right” opponent and for the “right” reasons — and seeing who is left standing. If that were the case, it would be refreshing to hear some of these “leaders” say it. But since that would reveal a degree of insanity in the speaker, it goes unspoken, while continuing on in deed.
I believe that the president, his advisors, and congress, don’t really see a better way; or at least, don’t have the collective courage to try one. And by trying instead to wipe our “enemies” out, they have effectively made both the enemies, and the world, a more precarious, instead of a safer, place to be.
We have shown ourselves to be as intolerant of the Islamic extremists as they are of us. While they have thrown insults at us and largely killed each other for hundreds of years before the first World Trade Center bombing and 9/11, they generally came to the U.S. to live in freedom, vacation, formulate plans of destruction back home, and what not. However, U.S. foreign policy and oil politics changed that. In our collective indignation, we became an aggressor, bent on retribution without due regard to the lives we were ending or tainting with toxin-laden bullets, or dreams we were shattering with our dumbass spart bombs. I want justice just like the president does. But I don’t want war. I don’t want more violence. I don’t want innocent lives lost over the rantings and ravings of demagogs. That’s what’s happening now.
“Okay smartypants, how should the president proceed?” you ask.
He would start by declaring in no uncertain terms, that he will pull back our military presence in Iraq, and initiate a transition over to a volunteer education, health care delivery, intelligence sharing, rebuilding force. By intelligence sharing, I’m not talking about government secrets, which are of little value anyway. I’m talking about the sharing of the knowledge and practical know-how needed to improve the standard of living in that part of the world.
This would immediately defuse a volatile situation, bringing the tally of warring factions down from two , to one. The president can demonstrate his sincerity and commitment to peace by ordering that while they are withdrawing, the soldiers will not fire upon anyone else, even if they are fired upon. They can defend themselves if attacked, but by making and publicizing such a bold and outrageous statement, the entire world will see just who, and what is going on in Iraq; the kind of minds and thinking that are making the country what it is. The entire world would be more likely to dare the Iraqis to harm them, and leave them no safe harbor for imbecilism. Military withdrawal would be swift, and our readiness to offer peaceful methods of nation-building would be just as swift.
The president would not stop at simply making edicts. He would also put posturing and bullshit aside and talk to the Islamic leaders — those who represent the true sentiments of their people — about their real issues. Islam will not become the One World Religion any more than Christianity will be. And from what I know about Islam, there exist no “commandment” about killing non-believers. If there was, it should be challenged. What loving God is going to demand that people who don’t embrace one particular religious viewpoint be put to death? What kind of life would the people who bend to such coersion have? Perhaps, the kind of life that predominates many parts of the Middle East today.
Rational Islamic leaders would not allow the radical ones to blow an opportunity to have a real, down-to-earth conversation with the president of the United States, along with leaders from other countries. By being rational himself, the president would elicit and appeal to the rational nature in the Islamic leaders, affirming our mutual desire, and commitment to live in peace. Neither peace, nor safety can be achieved through war. And certainly, not freedom from fear.
Truth is, the president is using fear and the escalation thereof, to strip away our freedom. He may not be “trying” to do it, but that’s what’s happening. Perhaps he thinks it’s in our best interests to give him more authority to look into our private lives, under the guize of searching out “the bad guys”. Well, if we weren’t doing the same things that the bad guys were doing, I might be more amenable to his reasoning, but we’re no different in fundamental nature than they are.
We may look like “us”. We may talk like “us”. But we are using the same terror inducing methods, and blowing what was, an intramural skirmish long before the United States was a glint in Tom Jefferson, Jim Hancock and Ben Franklin’s eyes, and brought it up to our level of destruction potential. We have also given those who still think in terms of “friends” and “enemies,” valid reason to turn their irrational thinking in our direction. Yet, we should still be unafraid.
We should not fear the consequences of president Bush’s decisions, and go on with our lives. We should be the examples we want others to emulate. Otherwise we’re left with trying to get our way by force, which only means that the force we use will be the force that is used on us. It will be the force of our creation.
What I’m getting at is this: The principals of equality and freedom inspired the birth of the United States, and helped men and women turn it into the great nation that is today. We did not accomplish this due to any particular religion. In essence, equality and freedom sit higher on the ladder of what is important than religion, for freedom even allows one to change religions without penalty, as one’s viewpoint changes during a lifetime.
The current encroachment upon our freedoms from within notwithstanding, United States has many more resources at its disposal by virtue of the social system that we gave birth to in 1776, and have continually refined ever since. We have more creative minds at our disposal, and more wealth to put behind their efforts. While we know how to destroy, we also know how to build, repair, improve, and renovate. The lunatics who seek to bring the United States, and our way of life down, don’t have the know how to build anything comparable; yet they envy what we have. However, if we “buy in” to their madness (as we have thus far) by trying to exterminate them, we are essentially elevating their ability wreak equal havoc and destruction upon us. And, should they succeed, it would not be “them” having done it to us, but us having done it to ourselves. For these reasons, it is better to halt the escalation and diffuse this political and social bomb.
