This so-called "war against terrorism" is an example of that abuse of power. In the first place, it is not, and should not be, a "war". A war is violent action between countries. Also, terrorists should not be granted the status of a political entity. Terrorists are criminals, plain and simple. I don't think they should even be called "terrorists" as long as that word still implies political legitimacy. So what does that have to do with Cops vs. the Military?
Governments have been using their military forces for police actions. This would not be so bad if they had to abide by the same strictures as domestic police agencies. If the police cannot go into a neighborhood and shoot everybody in this country, why can they get away with that on foreign soil? That right-wing motto: "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" is just plain stupid. It doesn't even work, because the more troops we send "over there" the more criminals feel justified in coming over here. A surgical strike by a drone missile sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice too many mistakes are made and innocent civilians become collateral damage. That sends the wrong message: that we really are waging a war on foreign territory. I repeat: we would not allow that kind of action here, so why do we allow it over there? Foreigners are not stupid just because they live in a different country. (They may be stupid for cultural reasons, but that is another subject altogether.) They know that we cannot treat our own people that way and they are righteously outraged that we think it's okay to treat them that way. Oh, yes, and that other right-wing slogan, "Preemptive self defense" is also morally indefensible. (More about that another day.)
If we withdrew all of our troops from foreign territories, those foreigners would not be so inclined to travel to our country where our homeland security police can track them, capture them, and put them on trial as the criminals that they are. Remember, our current strategy has cost many more American and foreign civilian lives than were killed on September 11, 2001. Does that make any sense? If we had no troops over there, the locals could all go back to killing each other. That is not a good thing, but at least it would be contained. If we were no longer causing problems for them. they would have to admit to, and deal with, the fact that it is their own culture that is causing their problems, not ours.
Yesterday was the day that we honored Martin Luther King, and I am wondering why the so-called "peaceful" religion of Islam has never produced any leaders of King's, or of Gandhi's, greatness. Do Muslims ever wonder about that? If so, what are they doing about it?
Last week the Pope stated that religion was above criticism, so he wants the Catholics to be as bad as Muslims in that regard. I have no respect for either Islam, Christianity, or Zionism, but at least many Jews, Christians and Muslims in this country can engage in critical introspection without fearing for their lives. The Muslim attitude that they can command respect by threats of violence has just the opposite effect. And just as our own policy of waging violence over there has its opposite effect, so does the Muslim policy of allowing criminals the honor of calling themselves Jihadists has the opposite effect. Every violent action committed in the name of Islam only dishonors Islam.
A word of warning to those right-wing Christian and Zionist shit-heads among us: All peaceful American citizens are protected by law from violence by home-grown terrorists, vigilantes, and other criminals. That includes Muslims! We cannot guarantee the protection of peaceful Muslims on foreign soil, but we can protect those here at home who really and truly want peace. Yes, we also have freedom of speech, so Muslims, as with any other religion, are not above critical discourse. So the violent Muslim hater's beware; you can talk shit all you want, but violence against peaceful Muslims cannot be tolerated. When the people in Muslim countries realize that, by law, we treat Muslims better here than they do over there, maybe they might, maybe, begin to question the values of their own culture. Many of my friends point out that the Muslim culture is so permanently ingrained in them that they will never "get it". That may well be true, but that is not really the point anyway. We have to be who we are and true to our peaceful and intellectual values. We have to deal with the bad apples in our own society. We have no time for another culture's bad apples as long as they keep them over there. (Yes, that brings up the subject of immigration, but I'll tackle that another time.)
The Spanish Inquisition was a long time ago, and the free-thinkers of the Renaissance period gradually put the brakes on the Catholic Church's abuse of power. Ironically, during the time Christianity brought Western Civilization down into the Dark Ages, the Muslim controlled Byzantine Civilization, and Spain before Isabella and Ferdinand, were in their height of intellectual and scientific inquiry. Jews and Christians were respected and protected as "People of The Book". The ancient Greek and Roman philosophy that was lost to the West, was saved and preserved by the secular Muslim culture. What the hell happened to them!? They are now run by criminal gangsters calling themselves "religious" leaders, just as Christianity was in the middle-ages.
We do not need to be over there, and we cannot afford to continue feeding into that sick violent, bullshit. I would like to see a mass protest against our present foreign policy by the families of our troops over there(Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, sisters, cousins, next-door neighbors, etc.). Bring our troops home, and let us spend our tax money on the Veteran's Administration to treat our own victims of war for post traumatic stress disorder.
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