Glenn Greenwald has documented the increased desire of America to bomb Yemen. Jeffrey Goldberg has documented the increased American desire to bomb Iran. President Obama has committed to escalating the unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Even though we are told that the combat mission in Iraq is coming to a close, there are still 50,000 troops there and combat will likely continue for a long time. Meanwhile, experts are warning America that our reaction against the inaccurately-named "ground zero mosque" is fueling extremists.
We are caught in a self-defeating cycle. Some Islamic extremists hate America and want to hurt us. So America takes military action against Muslims. So more Muslims hate America and want to harm us. So America does something else against Muslims. So they are more enraged and hate us more. So we react again. And so on. If one didn't know any better one might be inclined to think that we are purposefully created conditions that would justify our ongoing military presence in the Middle East. But that would be silly.
In any case, we can either let this go on indefinitely until we have an all-out world war on our hands or we can step back and try to regain our sanity and perspective by trying out the role of peacemaker for a while. We can either be a country that is more and more reliant on a massive military-industrial complex or we can choose to disentangle ourselves from foreign intrigue as George Washington presciently advised.
Frankly, though, I find it slightly terrifying how many people in America support escalating our military presence in the Muslim world. They are positively gleeful at the thought of bombing Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Iran, and Yemen, oh and Pakistan. I don't want to live in a world where war is the preferred way to solve our difficult international problems, but that's where we're headed if we don't start actively opposing it.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar