Sean Smith
Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2002
- Messages
- 4,925
It is not a justification of terrorism to say that the United States has brought some of its troubles in the international arena upon itself. Our policy in the Middle East, in a nutshell, consists of giving money and support to tyrannical scumbag regimes (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), in return for which we get skyscrapers blown up in New York. Of course, we also oppose tyrannical scumbag regimes, in return for which we get… skyscrapers blown up in New York. Both groups blame us for the fact that they haven’t been able to kill off all the Jews. And we pay a great deal of money for the privilege of such “friendship.â€
During the Cold War, perhaps this was more justifiable. And it is always tempting to just muddle along the path of least resistance, choosing whatever regime seems less of an inconvenience at the time. The problem is that when you prop up a degenerate regime, it is a bit like selling your soul; it may seem like a good deal at the time, but payback is a bitch. It also makes us (rightly) look like total hypocrites; we talk about democracy all the time, but only support it when it is expedient.
Here is where the bugbear of “stability†comes in. However, I think stability in the Middle East is not a worthy policy goal. Have you looked at the status quo there? Between bloodthirsty theocracies, petty kingdoms, and pseudo-Nazi dictatorships, I’d say that stability is about the last thing any thinking person would want there. Maintaining stability in the Middle East really means sustaining governments that are the antithesis of what we are supposed to stand for in the first place.
But even if we exclude moral factors for a moment, we sure aren’t getting a good return on the dollar from the status quo. World oil prices are grossly inflated even during what passes for peacetime in the Middle East, our alleged “allies†are the biggest manpower pools for international terrorism, and practically every Muslim hates our guts. Only our own State Department could look at that and claim, “success!â€
A pretty good hint concerning how badly our policy is going is that “friendly†Middle Eastern states we give aid to have crowds burning American flags like clockwork, while some Marines invading Iraq are getting hugs from what by all rights ought to be the “enemy population.†Regardless of your position on the current war in Iraq, this should strike you as deeply surreal. We send our specialists in killing people and breaking stuff to a country, and they do a better job of selling America as the “good guys†than diplomats and aid money ever did. Al-Jazeera has, in a way, symbolized this truth. As “friendly†Arabs, their coverage of the war was massively slanted by their abject hate for us, even as they showed (with evident dismay) that so many Iraqis were glad to have us there.
The burning question shouldn’t be, “why did the war go so well?†but rather, “why does our peace go so poorly?â€
I think the answer is that we are too deeply involved with all the wrong people. Our profound interest in the Middle East is largely an illusion; we get most of our oil from elsewhere. And we should divest ourselves of all involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli “peace†process… all we really do is act a scapegoat for the degenerate Palestinian authorities when they decide God told them to start blowing up school buses again. And Israel is past the point where they should need U.S. handouts anymore; as a democratic country with nukes, it is on them to make their own way at this point. In any case, we spend at least as much money on all their enemies as on them, so it would be a wash at worst. Our current policy, pursued in fits and starts over several decades, amounts to appeasement of tyranny on a massive, if inconsistent, scale. And I think it should stop.
What is the worst that could happen? Our “friends†in the region already take all our money, hate our guts anyway, and then join terrorist groups in large numbers. World oil prices are inflated anyway, and what harm would come of oil producers that aren’t run by monstrously evil dictators (e.g. Canada, Mexico, Venezuela) turning an extra buck or two? Not supporting bad governments will give the people living under them less of a pretext to hate our guts. And it isn’t like Arab countries that hate us have had any problem selling us oil on the open market before anyway.
Disengagement from violent idiot governments probably wouldn’t make international terrorism go away. No matter what we do, we are too convenient a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in the world to ever be left alone. Some fanatical bastards will always want to hurt America, either because God told them to, or just on general principles. So I’m all for hunting them down and killing them all as expeditiously as possible, even to the extreme of taking out entire regimes that attack us by proxy if it is necessary. But at present, we ignore the fact that our “friends†provide the bulk of the men and money to our terrorist enemies, and then wonder at the incomplete effects of our “war on terrorism.â€
Don’t misunderstand me; I think all the whining about American “imperialism†is just idiotic blather. The self-hating notion that we created and/or justified the terrorist attacks against us is just stupid on a cosmic scale. Our terrorist enemies represent, without exception, a much greater degree of evil than any dumb policy decision cooked up in Foggy Bottom in the last few decades. But that fact doesn’t relive us from the responsibility for correcting the past stupidities of our Middle Eastern policies, either.
Discuss.
During the Cold War, perhaps this was more justifiable. And it is always tempting to just muddle along the path of least resistance, choosing whatever regime seems less of an inconvenience at the time. The problem is that when you prop up a degenerate regime, it is a bit like selling your soul; it may seem like a good deal at the time, but payback is a bitch. It also makes us (rightly) look like total hypocrites; we talk about democracy all the time, but only support it when it is expedient.
Here is where the bugbear of “stability†comes in. However, I think stability in the Middle East is not a worthy policy goal. Have you looked at the status quo there? Between bloodthirsty theocracies, petty kingdoms, and pseudo-Nazi dictatorships, I’d say that stability is about the last thing any thinking person would want there. Maintaining stability in the Middle East really means sustaining governments that are the antithesis of what we are supposed to stand for in the first place.
But even if we exclude moral factors for a moment, we sure aren’t getting a good return on the dollar from the status quo. World oil prices are grossly inflated even during what passes for peacetime in the Middle East, our alleged “allies†are the biggest manpower pools for international terrorism, and practically every Muslim hates our guts. Only our own State Department could look at that and claim, “success!â€
A pretty good hint concerning how badly our policy is going is that “friendly†Middle Eastern states we give aid to have crowds burning American flags like clockwork, while some Marines invading Iraq are getting hugs from what by all rights ought to be the “enemy population.†Regardless of your position on the current war in Iraq, this should strike you as deeply surreal. We send our specialists in killing people and breaking stuff to a country, and they do a better job of selling America as the “good guys†than diplomats and aid money ever did. Al-Jazeera has, in a way, symbolized this truth. As “friendly†Arabs, their coverage of the war was massively slanted by their abject hate for us, even as they showed (with evident dismay) that so many Iraqis were glad to have us there.
The burning question shouldn’t be, “why did the war go so well?†but rather, “why does our peace go so poorly?â€
I think the answer is that we are too deeply involved with all the wrong people. Our profound interest in the Middle East is largely an illusion; we get most of our oil from elsewhere. And we should divest ourselves of all involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli “peace†process… all we really do is act a scapegoat for the degenerate Palestinian authorities when they decide God told them to start blowing up school buses again. And Israel is past the point where they should need U.S. handouts anymore; as a democratic country with nukes, it is on them to make their own way at this point. In any case, we spend at least as much money on all their enemies as on them, so it would be a wash at worst. Our current policy, pursued in fits and starts over several decades, amounts to appeasement of tyranny on a massive, if inconsistent, scale. And I think it should stop.
What is the worst that could happen? Our “friends†in the region already take all our money, hate our guts anyway, and then join terrorist groups in large numbers. World oil prices are inflated anyway, and what harm would come of oil producers that aren’t run by monstrously evil dictators (e.g. Canada, Mexico, Venezuela) turning an extra buck or two? Not supporting bad governments will give the people living under them less of a pretext to hate our guts. And it isn’t like Arab countries that hate us have had any problem selling us oil on the open market before anyway.
Disengagement from violent idiot governments probably wouldn’t make international terrorism go away. No matter what we do, we are too convenient a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in the world to ever be left alone. Some fanatical bastards will always want to hurt America, either because God told them to, or just on general principles. So I’m all for hunting them down and killing them all as expeditiously as possible, even to the extreme of taking out entire regimes that attack us by proxy if it is necessary. But at present, we ignore the fact that our “friends†provide the bulk of the men and money to our terrorist enemies, and then wonder at the incomplete effects of our “war on terrorism.â€
Don’t misunderstand me; I think all the whining about American “imperialism†is just idiotic blather. The self-hating notion that we created and/or justified the terrorist attacks against us is just stupid on a cosmic scale. Our terrorist enemies represent, without exception, a much greater degree of evil than any dumb policy decision cooked up in Foggy Bottom in the last few decades. But that fact doesn’t relive us from the responsibility for correcting the past stupidities of our Middle Eastern policies, either.
Discuss.
