Coming Home
“The best way of conquering an enemy is to win him over by not antagonizing him”.
- Lao Tzu
To wage a "war on terrorism" is to wage a war on a tactic, and as such it is a war that cannot be won. Why? Because terrorism is a tactic that is not going to ever go away. To wage war upon a tactic that will never go away is to wage a war that will never end. Even if the American people desire to fight a war without end, which they do not, the country cannot sustain it without incurring a total economic, political, and spiritual collapse. This is the collapse that America will face sooner rather than later if we do not come up with a plan for ending this war that, as it is currently conceived, will never end because it can never be won.
The tactic of terrorism is an inevitable consequence of the military presence of a technologically advanced power such as the United States in a region of the world full of people who are hostile to its presence, yet who for various economic and technological reasons are unable to fight it in a conventional military fashion. The inability of the radicalized Arabs and Muslims to fight the US military according to its own terms is what causes them to resort to terrorist tactics. Simply put, as long as our troops are over there, these people will continue to attack them with terroristic methods, raising new recruits with every succeeding generation to throw as human bombs at the sons and daughters of our own future generations.
The Bush Administration, which remains a steadily unfolding catastrophe for our country, maintains that our troops must remain in the middle-east until the enemy is defeated. Yet the enemy will never be defeated so long as US forces remain in these regions of the world where they are not wanted. Everyone can see that the people we are ostensibly supposed to be "helping" have an ever growing hatred of our presence in their countries, and most of us do not want our troops to be over there either. Let us put a stop to this madness!
How do we end a war that has no end as it is currently conceived? In the spirit of getting the ball rolling, I propose that we, the United States, set a date for the new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq to assume total control and responsibility for their own affairs. We will do everything that we can to help them prepare for this goal. Then, when the deadline arrives, we pull all of our troops out and bring them home. The war is ended. While we are at it, we can withdraw from South Korea as well, thereby undermining the apocalypse mentality of Kim Jong IL, who wields the specter of a war with the US like a fearful sword over the heads of his own people. These actions should amply demonstrate that when radical regimes lose their "Devil", they also lose the rationale for their own fear-based power.
Will danger in the world go away? No. Yet much of the danger that has been instigated and exacerbated by decades of American foreign policy meddling in foreign cultures will be defused by our breathtakingly bold departure from these regions of the world where we do not belong, and are not wanted.
Bringing our troops home will not only spare their lives from a senseless slaughter (preserving our trained military manpower for future defense needs) but will in one blow remove the rationale that most of our current enemies are fighting under. Let them mock us for leaving the fray all they want. What will we care? We will have preserved our strength, and will have executed the most daring, rational, and effective move possible for us! To continue on the course we are on is to court national suicide. The pursuit of empire has destroyed every nation that has undertaken it, and America is no exception.
We can solve the majority of our international problems by bringing our forces home, and steering a new foreign policy course. We can concentrate our energies upon securing our own borders, gearing our economy towards true growth and opportunity for all, weaning ourselves from our addiction to foreign oil and a petrochemical-based economy, pursuing alternative sources of energy, restoring our freedoms that have been steadily eroded under the withering, fear-based pressure of current and recent administrations, and tackling the "values crisis" that is tearing our culture apart from within. Terrorism will still exist as a tactic in the world, and it always will so long as major powers insist on exploiting and dominating weaker ones. Yet our withdrawal from the goals of global domination and the role of world cop will remove the incentives for the terrorism that is afflicting us with a dangerous over-reaction on the part of our current Administration.
It is our American values of personal and economic freedom that have won the world. When we surrender these values for strong-arm geopolitical machinations, legalized torture, and the sham of a "democracy" that establishes democracies while throwing its own away, we surrender any moral high ground we may have ever had, and defeat ourselves in the process. It is not too late, though, so let us turn it around!
- Werbinox
- Lao Tzu
To wage a "war on terrorism" is to wage a war on a tactic, and as such it is a war that cannot be won. Why? Because terrorism is a tactic that is not going to ever go away. To wage war upon a tactic that will never go away is to wage a war that will never end. Even if the American people desire to fight a war without end, which they do not, the country cannot sustain it without incurring a total economic, political, and spiritual collapse. This is the collapse that America will face sooner rather than later if we do not come up with a plan for ending this war that, as it is currently conceived, will never end because it can never be won.
The tactic of terrorism is an inevitable consequence of the military presence of a technologically advanced power such as the United States in a region of the world full of people who are hostile to its presence, yet who for various economic and technological reasons are unable to fight it in a conventional military fashion. The inability of the radicalized Arabs and Muslims to fight the US military according to its own terms is what causes them to resort to terrorist tactics. Simply put, as long as our troops are over there, these people will continue to attack them with terroristic methods, raising new recruits with every succeeding generation to throw as human bombs at the sons and daughters of our own future generations.
The Bush Administration, which remains a steadily unfolding catastrophe for our country, maintains that our troops must remain in the middle-east until the enemy is defeated. Yet the enemy will never be defeated so long as US forces remain in these regions of the world where they are not wanted. Everyone can see that the people we are ostensibly supposed to be "helping" have an ever growing hatred of our presence in their countries, and most of us do not want our troops to be over there either. Let us put a stop to this madness!
How do we end a war that has no end as it is currently conceived? In the spirit of getting the ball rolling, I propose that we, the United States, set a date for the new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq to assume total control and responsibility for their own affairs. We will do everything that we can to help them prepare for this goal. Then, when the deadline arrives, we pull all of our troops out and bring them home. The war is ended. While we are at it, we can withdraw from South Korea as well, thereby undermining the apocalypse mentality of Kim Jong IL, who wields the specter of a war with the US like a fearful sword over the heads of his own people. These actions should amply demonstrate that when radical regimes lose their "Devil", they also lose the rationale for their own fear-based power.
Will danger in the world go away? No. Yet much of the danger that has been instigated and exacerbated by decades of American foreign policy meddling in foreign cultures will be defused by our breathtakingly bold departure from these regions of the world where we do not belong, and are not wanted.
Bringing our troops home will not only spare their lives from a senseless slaughter (preserving our trained military manpower for future defense needs) but will in one blow remove the rationale that most of our current enemies are fighting under. Let them mock us for leaving the fray all they want. What will we care? We will have preserved our strength, and will have executed the most daring, rational, and effective move possible for us! To continue on the course we are on is to court national suicide. The pursuit of empire has destroyed every nation that has undertaken it, and America is no exception.
We can solve the majority of our international problems by bringing our forces home, and steering a new foreign policy course. We can concentrate our energies upon securing our own borders, gearing our economy towards true growth and opportunity for all, weaning ourselves from our addiction to foreign oil and a petrochemical-based economy, pursuing alternative sources of energy, restoring our freedoms that have been steadily eroded under the withering, fear-based pressure of current and recent administrations, and tackling the "values crisis" that is tearing our culture apart from within. Terrorism will still exist as a tactic in the world, and it always will so long as major powers insist on exploiting and dominating weaker ones. Yet our withdrawal from the goals of global domination and the role of world cop will remove the incentives for the terrorism that is afflicting us with a dangerous over-reaction on the part of our current Administration.
It is our American values of personal and economic freedom that have won the world. When we surrender these values for strong-arm geopolitical machinations, legalized torture, and the sham of a "democracy" that establishes democracies while throwing its own away, we surrender any moral high ground we may have ever had, and defeat ourselves in the process. It is not too late, though, so let us turn it around!
- Werbinox
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