The War:
The true root of our war is a flawed foreign policy. In the mid-East it has shown that our intervention has lead to hate. This is true in a lot of countries around the world and will eventually lead to more terrorism and war if we don’t change our foreign policy. In 1990 we had 395 military bases in foreign countries. www.cdi.org/adm/transcripts/505/ This leaves those countries less like they are a sovereign nation and more like one of being a pawn of America. We have total control over them and many of their citizens hate us for it. If a foreign nation were to establish a military base in America and use its military influence to help us decide what leaders we were going to chose and what companies we would do buisness with we, as Americans, might just fight back anyway we can. Some of those bases were set up in 1898 as coal refueling stations for our ships in the Spanish American war. And we still haven’t left. No wonder world leaders say, “U.S. Government is slow to adjust to the dramatically changed world situation.” Most bases were set up to help stop the spread of Soviet Communism. There is not any Soviet Communism yet in 1990 we still had over 1,000,000 Americans, abroad, on defense payroll. Take a quick look at what happened to the Kurdistan nation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire post WW1 when the British and Americans took over the mid- East and decided who was going to live where and who was going to rule whom. www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/kurd/ A people without a country and we will not let them have one. In the war in Iraq I propose that we let the Iraqis vote on whether they want us there or not. They should also vote on whether they want to be one nation or if they want to split the country into the lines that were there before U.S. intervention. I propose that we close all U.S. military bases on foreign soil. We will never take a leading roll in any foreign intervention and will only be an equal player monetarily and military wise in the United Nations. The exception would be the direct defense of our Nation. We will not commit ground troops to any foriegn intervention.
What we realy need to do is understand that the way war is fought is changing and we need to stay ahead of the changes. Currently in the mid east it is more of a war of perception than one of bombs. What we are not doing is using the best media in the world, that being the U.S. media, to help win that war of perception. We should also help teach those in the mid east the benifits of peace. Teach that all of the extremists and terrorist miss quote or omit full passages of the Qur'an and will not go to heaven because of thier deception. Teach that only Allah can judge and punish one to death for not believing in him. Teach that every book of the Qur'an starts with "In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever-merciful".
Our current leaders inability to understand how to fight this war is why a small amount radicals in caves can defeat the the combined efforts of the U.S. and U.N. millitary force.
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