Lives and finances depend on President Obama’s careful analyses and procedures concerning the war in Afghanistan, and he must consider the will of the people. With so many demands on his time, thank goodness he is taking the necessary deliberations.
Ever since we used our own weapons of massive destruction—the nuclear bombs ending the war with Japan, nearly obliterating the populations of two cities—we have believed in this ultimate insurance against would-be enemies.
That idea ended with 9/11, when terrorists used our own airplanes and a few boxcutters, which questioned our status as supreme rulers of the world. Defending this position is now costing taxpayers more than 30 percent of each tax dollar for our defense. Not only have tens of thousands of lives been lost at this point, but our National Treasury is overdrawn by more than $1 trillion—with no end in sight.
The war on terrorism will become an endless effort if we continue to deal with it by sending our military, no matter the numbers, all around the Middle East. Extraordinary funding has disappeared into vast and insidious corruption.
There should be more informed and knowledgeable discourse in national debate on assessing our foreign policy. Our standard of living, such as it is now, exists too much on horrific living conditions of poor nations that suffer our exploitation, while we enjoy consuming the valuable mineral resources and various products that have been nationalized, by our greed, and exported from their countries. Oil is just one of them.
If we can ever get past the corruption and hubris of world leaders, become a caring nation instead of demanding that others bend to our will, we should be able to end terrorist threats. Then we can get serious about providing
universal health care, ending hunger and homelessness in our own country, and developing a safer world environment, along with the benefits we should be providing to our people without going broke to do it.
This article appears in Nov 12-19, 2009.
