Those are interesting excerpts.
<...willing to uproot the coca fields of struggling peasants, but without the stomach to retaliate meaningfully against the druglords who savage our children and our society.>
One big reason that third world farmers grow coca, instead of corn, is U.S. subsidies to U.S. farmers, and trade restraints, that depress international prices for legitimate crops. Subsidies of $100B/year, by the U.S.. And another $100B, for Japan and Europe. Each. And, in combatting terrorism, similarly, we could look at our own actions, and see if perhaps there are some things we could do (or not do), things that don't involve killing, to influence the reasons why third world people support terrorism. Remember, war is supposed to be the last, not the first, resort? Those excerpts are a search for alternatives, but they only consider alternate methods of killing.
We do target the druglords. And we do catch a not-small number of them. But there are always replacements, and the flow of drugs continues, no matter how many we imprison (or kill). And the reason, as any honest capitalist will tell you, is that some clever entrepeneur will provide the supply, as long as the demand exists. This applies equally, to the supply of terrorists, to meet the demand for vengeance. We can kill and kill and kill, and there will always be more of them. If our entire response consists of killing.
So, the solution is neither war on the "infantry" of coca farmers, nor targeted assassinations of druglord "generals". Both methods have been tried, by many well-financed programs in many places, over many years, and both methods consistently fail.
The solution is a Hearts And Minds campaign, targetted at our own children. It ought to be easier to change things in our own homes, than on the other side of the planet, right? Convince our children not to use cocaine and crack, and the problem goes away, and we don't have to make these awful decisions, about who, exactly, we are going to kill, and how, exactly, we are going to kill them. And, perhaps, some of the $400B/Y we are spending, on the Ways and Means of Death, could be spent on our own children, for constructive, rather than destructive, purposes.
<most Iraqis think that if we don't shoot Hussein out of hand if we catch him, they should have the mother of all trials and then string him up.>
That sounds reasonable. Except, instead of stringing him up, I'd give him a shovel and wheelbarrow, and sentence him to unearthing the contents of the mass graves, every body. That ought to take "the rest of his natural life." |
