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- eric - Sep 21 2006 | terrorism, terror, foreign policy, politics
The magazine "Foreign Policy" wrote an interesting piece on terrorism and spoke to 100 experts across all party lines and job responsibilities to get a survey of what everyone outside of the Bush White House thinks. The shocker? Nearly ALL of them believe the war on terror is making us less safe and that we are waging a war if ideas using the wrong tools.
Quoted: “Foreign-policy experts have never been in so much agreement about an administration’s performance abroad,” says Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and an index participant. “The reason is that it’s clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force.”
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Ha, good analogy.
1 FaverViewed: 3 TimesQuoted: This isn't 'The Cosby Show.' Michelle Obama doesn't have to do it all.
- shiwani - 3 days ago1 FaverViewed: 2 Times
- deborealis - 15 days ago1 FaverViewed: 3 Times
The experts agree: neocons are morons
neocons = morons
when experts = eric and akabagel
Both of your are giving aid and comfort to the terrorists! You should move to San Francisco where all of you hate America first liberal traitors belog!
I like San Francisco you neo-conformist wanker!
It's so much easier to sleep at night when the people you're bombing are part of the "axis of evil"
Stupid policy decisions aside, what _would_ make America safer? I think there are a number of well-funded organizations/states who don't really want to rest until us & Israel are buried or converted to Islam. Not to say that they are a majority, just that they wield a disproportionally large amount of power in their region.
I think the way to make us safer is to ask "why" those "well-funded organizations/states" do not like us and then try and address that with open and respectful dialog. This should not be a question of religion but we're making it one by pitting extremist against extremist. The US has openly supported some of the Middle East dictators (when a democracy would never have had those tyrants in power) who we are suddenly intent on removing. I think helpful dialog has to begin with us understanding why a good deal of the region views us as duplicitous and untrustworthy, acknowledge it, set a standard for working together in the future, and then honor it.
I think we undrstand quite well why foreign moderates don't like us, and we're admittedly doing a poor job of addressing that. The part that still gets me though is that these moderates are protesting us but are not the same people trying to blow us and our allies up. The ones that are doing so hate us for things in the past that we can't really fix or address anymore, and I don't think anything we can do now will get them to stop short of ceasing to exist.
Sure, we need to address their grievances and come to a mutual agreement. The moderates on both sides would be open to such talks. But how do we defend ourselves in the meantime while we wait for the Old Guard to die out?
The lack of a dialog - even with the moderates - adds fuel to the extremist fire (whether or not they are involved in the talks themselves). The lack of dialog shows how little America thinks about the statesmen in these countries. The lack of dialog shows that America believes in democracy when it suits it them, and at no other time. There is no quick fix.
It is a long and painful reconciliation process and we won't be truly safe during it, just as we are not truly safe now, but at least it's a direction and a goal. The current policy is making things worse. You want to know why Bin Laden hasn't hit us again? It's because he doesn't have to. He's watching the current administration scare us into giving up our highly touted freedoms.
He's actually has been saying that. He only puts enough pressure on us to get us to give up our own democratic ideals (domestic spying and state-sponsored torture come to mind) and spend ourselves into a hole trying to cover every potential vulnerability.