"Hearts and Minds" failed in Vietnam because we spent all our time bombing the north and installing puppet pro-US governments (many of them, as the Vietnamese themselves kept refusing to accept the leaders we installed), while cynically calling it democracy.
How many problems have we had with the nation of Vietnam since we pulled out of there? Yes, they killed a lot of people in ending their civil war, but we (wisely) gave asylum to the pro-US generals and other officers/operatives who would have been in grave danger in the new regime. Today, Vietnam is a place Americans can visit without fear... much fear, anyway, since there is still quite a bit of bitterness.
Where we failed in Vietnam was the concept of "peace through superior firepower". You simply cannot bomb a people out of existence. You cannot simply say "win their hearts and minds" unless you're doing what it takes to understand the people you're trying to win over.
The idea that all Muslims are likely terrorists (even if 20% of them actually are) is going to destroy us. He's right, that we're providing the fodder for radicalization of those youth, now entering their mid-teens, who have never known a time when the USA was not killing innocent people in the name of our own protection. Anyone with half a brain can see that we intervene in those nations mainly when we have oil and regional control interests at stake, which is why ISIS is a "threat to the United States", while Boko Haram is not.
Yes, the attacks in places like San Bernardino are terrible, tragic, and to be prevented if we can do so without trampling on our own constitutional rights, but more people died in traffic accidents in that city that day. Let's get some perspective about the real damage they can do to us, versus the damage we're now doing to our international and historical image, as a nation, by our actions.
By our ineptitude and ignorance, the USA helped to turn ISIS from a small, splinter-sect of radicals, poorly-armed and -equipped, into the force they are today. And now we're using them (in the wake of Al Quaeda, which seems to have "gone away", except it didn't) as our new justification for police-state surveillance of our own people and an eternal transfusion from our national coffers into the Military-Industrial Complex. We need our military to be ready to face threats like China and an emergent Russia; instead, we are pissing away our relationships with allies and rendering most of the Third World hostile to us because of our exploitation. In short, we are handling our "lone superpower" status in the worst way possible, driven by right-wing rhetoric and people with an extreme financial interest in the manufactured status quo.
We need the military. We need to hunt down leaders of terrorist cells. What we don't need to do is invade nations and play with their politics to do so. We should have learned by now that this approach always backfires-- but we just keep hoping that a few more bombs will really do the trick, this time, a little better technology will let us "win". In reality, what we're doing today in the Middle East and Afghanistan is little different from our agenda throughout the 50s-80s in Central and South America, as documented by Noam Chomsky and others.
We are repeating a terrible historical pattern. Perhaps if more of us stopped listening to propagandists, and instead listened to those who are in a position to understand what is allowing the radicals to radicalize more Muslims into terrorists, and stopped thinking we can bomb away our problems, we might be able to find a solution. Islam will never modernize under threat; they will modernize when cultural openness is extended to them, so that the Enlightenment values can take root. Might take a long time, and a fair amount of regional anarchy, but if we stop manufacturing new threats via our influence in the region and just deal with the ones that exist, maybe we can rebuild our economy and stop sacrificing lives on the altar of our 1%'ers.
How many problems have we had with the nation of Vietnam since we pulled out of there? Yes, they killed a lot of people in ending their civil war, but we (wisely) gave asylum to the pro-US generals and other officers/operatives who would have been in grave danger in the new regime. Today, Vietnam is a place Americans can visit without fear... much fear, anyway, since there is still quite a bit of bitterness.
Where we failed in Vietnam was the concept of "peace through superior firepower". You simply cannot bomb a people out of existence. You cannot simply say "win their hearts and minds" unless you're doing what it takes to understand the people you're trying to win over.
The idea that all Muslims are likely terrorists (even if 20% of them actually are) is going to destroy us. He's right, that we're providing the fodder for radicalization of those youth, now entering their mid-teens, who have never known a time when the USA was not killing innocent people in the name of our own protection. Anyone with half a brain can see that we intervene in those nations mainly when we have oil and regional control interests at stake, which is why ISIS is a "threat to the United States", while Boko Haram is not.
Yes, the attacks in places like San Bernardino are terrible, tragic, and to be prevented if we can do so without trampling on our own constitutional rights, but more people died in traffic accidents in that city that day. Let's get some perspective about the real damage they can do to us, versus the damage we're now doing to our international and historical image, as a nation, by our actions.
By our ineptitude and ignorance, the USA helped to turn ISIS from a small, splinter-sect of radicals, poorly-armed and -equipped, into the force they are today. And now we're using them (in the wake of Al Quaeda, which seems to have "gone away", except it didn't) as our new justification for police-state surveillance of our own people and an eternal transfusion from our national coffers into the Military-Industrial Complex. We need our military to be ready to face threats like China and an emergent Russia; instead, we are pissing away our relationships with allies and rendering most of the Third World hostile to us because of our exploitation. In short, we are handling our "lone superpower" status in the worst way possible, driven by right-wing rhetoric and people with an extreme financial interest in the manufactured status quo.
We need the military. We need to hunt down leaders of terrorist cells. What we don't need to do is invade nations and play with their politics to do so. We should have learned by now that this approach always backfires-- but we just keep hoping that a few more bombs will really do the trick, this time, a little better technology will let us "win". In reality, what we're doing today in the Middle East and Afghanistan is little different from our agenda throughout the 50s-80s in Central and South America, as documented by Noam Chomsky and others.
We are repeating a terrible historical pattern. Perhaps if more of us stopped listening to propagandists, and instead listened to those who are in a position to understand what is allowing the radicals to radicalize more Muslims into terrorists, and stopped thinking we can bomb away our problems, we might be able to find a solution. Islam will never modernize under threat; they will modernize when cultural openness is extended to them, so that the Enlightenment values can take root. Might take a long time, and a fair amount of regional anarchy, but if we stop manufacturing new threats via our influence in the region and just deal with the ones that exist, maybe we can rebuild our economy and stop sacrificing lives on the altar of our 1%'ers.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
