An often repeated saying on why we're being
attacked is: they hate us for our freedom.
Let us look at that, analogously.
In a neighborhood there are families with
different beliefs and cultural norms: some families may deny the women in their
households the options of self-determination, while other families allow it;
some families state there are topics forbidden to talk about, while others freely
talk about anything. There are of course
many other aspects where families may disagree with one another. Disagreements may emerge, but if those
disagreements are only verbal there is not actual violence between the
families, regardless of the animosity.
Not all cultures are equal, and the more liberty
a culture has, the better it is enabling each individual to pursue the highest
human potential and from that individual achievement, benefit the rest as a
consequence. This will be a source for
continuing debate amongst the families, but again as long as words are used,
there are no acts of violence.
Let's get beyond disagreement in words: say
there was a troublesome raccoon in the neighbor's yard and we our sent our
'family pet', a guard dog out from our yard to get the raccoon and in doing so
the dog injured the neighbor's children, killed their cat and tore up their
yard. Our neighbors would be upset. If our response to their being upset was
simply dismissing injured child, dead cat and destroyed property as collateral
damage since the dog was trying to kill a raccoon that was hiding in a bush on
their property - that'd be little comfort to them. We'll give our neighbors an extreme sense of
patience and say though they were angry, they 'understood' our goal and asked
us to be more careful and control our dog.
However, after getting the one raccoon we saw another raccoon and we
advised the neighbor that we'll keep sending our dog over to try and get the
'new' raccoon - a 'war on raccoons' and in that war our dog hurt more of their
children, killed more of their pets and tore up their property.
Let's also add some other 'neighborly' actions such
as propping up more distant neighbors around the neighbor with the raccoon;
these distant neighbors try and beat the one with the raccoon into submission. Our last 'neighborly' action is trying to get
them to submit to our will directly by sabotaging their property, denying them
electricity and water.
We are no longer having a verbal disagreement
with our neighbor, but are actually destroying their property and putting their
family at risk.
Let's get out of the analogy and put this into
perspective.
Just from drone strikes in Pakistan the civilian
death count in the past few years range from near 500 to near 2,000 (US and
Pakistani reported stats); injuries of course are much higher; men, women and
children are among the victims with civilian deaths accounting from 50-80% (US
and Pakistani reported stats). Other
areas being targeted by drone strikes include Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan
and Somalia.
As far as propping up one neighbor to rule over
another, there was Mubarak being assisted in his rule in Egypt,
as well as the Iranian Shah resulting in the oppression of the people of those
respective countries. Sanctions are
cutting off the resources to the family, i.e. country.
If our neighbor was sending their dog into our
yard and it killed our pets, harmed our children and tore up our property,
would we be upset? Beyond the analogy, this
isn't about pets being killed - it's about men, women and children being
killed. We were appropriately angry with
thousands of Americans being killed; is it reasonable to think that those in
another country are not angry with hundreds, or even thousands of their people
being killed? Would the killing of those
civilians, and especially children, spur the people in those countries to fight
back?
How about if they were propping up someone else
who tried to overthrow us, or cutoff our ability to get our resources?-sanctions
upon us. This has been done, or is being
done to them - would that spur them to fight back?
If war is needed, we have a process for it and
it isn't at the whim of an individual politician who wants to get re-elected,
but from the deliberation and vote of the entire Congress to approve war with a
specific enemy, plan of action and exit plan - not the amorphous, never-ending
'war on terror'. Afterward, the war is
to be swiftly fought to not keep our soldiers in harm's way, to not continually
bolster the resolution against them and not place great war costs on the
taxpayers.
This plan of drone strikes (as an extension of
the 'war on terror') is unconstitutional and a long-term action. The Times Square
bomber was foiled, as was the 'underwear' bomber in the plane; however, imagine
if they succeeded and we had similar attacks periodically for years. How would we feel and how would we
respond? We'd steel our resolve against,
and then want to attack those who were perpetrating those attacks. It wouldn't be about the beliefs of those
attacking us - whether or not they embraced freedom or oppression - it would be
about their attacking us, killing our citizens.
Our presence is unneeded all across the planet,
does not benefit us and our actions of 'spreading democracy' do not help but
actually harm our cause. If we want to assist
in the spread of liberty, it is by example for to force liberty defeats the
purpose; liberty cannot be forced, but embraced. Forced liberty is an oxymoron.
Through peaceful interactions, our example will
spur the people to assert their own self-determination and get rid of the
oppression forced upon them. Malala Yousufzai
is an example of the individual standing against oppression as she is an
adolescent standing against a theocracy denying her ability to get educated; she
was attacked, shot twice for her opposition, but she survived. The way the people in her country are
embracing her and condemning her attackers shows how the people can direct
themselves - if they only have the courage and example. Imagine if Malala was killed by a drone
strike; her spark trying to illuminate the darkness of theocratic oppression
would be out, while her blood would bolster the people against those
controlling the drones that killed her.
If our message of peace and liberty comes
repeatedly with a bomb killing civilians, then there is not a message of peace
and liberty, but a message of oppression and death.
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