2016 Elections

[Hatshepsut]

....or literally dropping books and food instead of bombs in those without any political stability, and ...formulate a coherent strategy for not simply destroying cities and terrorist organizations that control them, but that helps establish actual systems of government that the common man, woman, and child will benefit from no matter what their color or creed is...

Get back to me when once we have the particulars on what all these strategies will be and how they will work. I think we should be sharing more of our wealth and expertise with other parts of the world than we do. Although we're never going to share enough to bring everyone in the world to an equal standard of welfare, which is what would be needed to eliminate the envy and jealousy that motivate a lot of the friction in the world system. Equalization would probably require Americans to surrender about 80% of their paychecks to the donation fund. It'll never happen that way. The poorer countries are going to have to work their way up like the rich countries once did.

Not to mention the problem of making sure this money goes to people in need instead of to cronies waiting for it on the dock. And that it's for projects that will be useful in the recipients' cultures. White elephants and aid theft have been bugaboos with development aid. Even then, just the fact that there are  donors and recipients in this relationship creates resentment. Nobody likes to be a dependent on someone else's goodwill.

As for constitutional reform in Muslim lands, that's something the citizens of those lands will have to do for themselves. We can't do it for them. Another reason I was skeptical about Bush's "democracy in Iraq" thing. I only hope our era of CIA-sponsored tin pot dictators is over, so we don't keep making it harder for them. However, corruption and brutality were features of government there before we stepped in. Not everything that's wrong with their politics is our fault.

Policing security threats posed by organizations like IS without killing anyone is pretty hard. These fellas are hardcore. Al-Baghdadi would like to rule the entire planet as caliph and have American gays nailed to crosses and American women in Burqas. He doesn't have the power to do it. And raw power is precisely what determines whether a person or group can or cannot do something in this world. While IS governing in Washington is unlikely, it's true that dropping food and books on their territories won't change anything, and if they are left alone their area of control will expand. For that reason I can't insist on moral purity for our side before we act against IS.