"Spend lots of money on bombs to kill terrorists, that is how we bolster the economy," huffs Mike Lucinscki, my opinionated colleague and Feet First columnist.
The American masses want bombings. They want death. An end to "evil." They want Osama bin Laden dead or alive. They want war. So, Jee Dub is donning his cowboy hat and he's gonna ride a missile right on over them there hills.
But this is not a war. It was a terrorist attack. A relatively small organization of people that loosely extends through 50 nations, including our own, hijacked four airliners and crashed them the most important buildings they could.
Why did they do it? Well, let's start by debasing a common belief; these people are not evil. Evil exists only in fairy tales and simple minds. The closest actuality to evil, the root of all conflicts, is private interests. And what, my friends, is the foundation of capitalism? Private interest, combined with a cold heart that values profit over all other things.
Although not evil, these people despise the United States beyond what words can express, large numbers of them. Some of them even to the degree that they will sacrifice their lives to injure America.
One reason for this hatred is the American military bases in Saudi Arabia, a place that Muslims consider to be sacred land. They fiercely disagree with capitalism because they see their land and peoples taken advantage of in its name. They attribute their impoverished living conditions to American influence. To them capitalism as a vile, greedy system. They hate it. They hate America. They hate everything American. They want an end to our society, but they are not evil.
So let's bomb them, right? Start the crusade and put an end to bin Laden and all his followers. But what exactly are we going to bomb? We are not talking about nations and armies, which we can war against. We are talking about a dispersed network of individuals in 50 nations.
Well then, let's just bomb a bunch of stuff in Afghanistan, the nation in which bin Laden happens to be at the moment. How many innocent Afghans are we going to kill in the name of our war?
How will the survivors of our attacks react? Will they think, "Oh right, America is good. We don't want to put an end to our friend the U.S.A. Why would we want to terrorize them?" Hardly.
More military force in the Middle East will result in more opposition to America. Some of this opposition will be violent. Some, like we have seen, will be willing to die to take revenge for their lost brothers, sisters and children.
Strikes will not end terrorism. They will inspire it.
You cannot win a war against terrorism, just like you cannot win a war against drugs. If we kill a particular drug dealer, another will rise in his place. If we kill bin Laden, another will inherit his role, and the new leader will have more followers and supporters than his predecessor.
American military strikes will put Americans in danger. We must end the bloodbath here.
Our objective must be to combat terrorism, not to win a war. We should reduce military presence. Initiate projects to promote understanding and acceptance of America. Campaign in opposition to the anti-American propaganda that their children are subjected to on a daily basis. Provide them with aid. Roll in on jeeps, American flags flying high, to deliver food, medical supplies and toilet paper. These things cost far less than their bombs, our lives, our bombs or their lives.
I can't tell you how we made these enemies, but bombing impoverished peoples doesn't make any friends. It endangers the American public.
