Fear and Lies

I am terrified listening to the Republican Right talking about the attack on soldiers at Fort Hood. They are working up their base and shamelessly using this incident to keep the wars going in the Middle East. I feel like we are back in the days just after 9/11 when anyone who was Muslim or was not perceived to be a real American could be shot in the streets. I don't blame individuals who are scared of what they don't fully understand - I blame officials who use such fear to advance their own evil agendas.

From the beginning, terrorists should have been dealt with as a 'law enforcement' problem and not a 'military' problem. There was no 'army' to fight. Using investigative techniques to first find then eliminate the ringleaders would have saved thousands of US lives and the trillions that have gone wasted in the past 6 years. These lost dollars could have paid for universal healthcare a dozen times over. There is always money for war and Wallstreet but not for the ordinary citizen.

It has been military procedures such as 'stop-loss' that have created the stress in soldiers like the individual who killed 13 at Fort Hood. Asking for 40,000 more troops for Afghanistan is sheer lunacy and only escalates a conflict that is UNWINABLE. More dead young men, more returning with life shattering injuries and PTSD that will show up in many more tragic killings.

Why can't anyone learn from the lessons of history? We all know that no one since Alexander the Great has been able to defeat the forces in Afghanistan. What makes the US think they will fair any differently than the Russians or the British before them?

What happened last week is tragic but is emblematic of all that is wrong with American foreign policy. I have nothing but respect and sympathy for the soldiers (my father was one for 32 years) who seem to be the sacrificial lambs for those who have evil intentions and the desire to keep the profits flowing by maintaining the war policies. Its time to bring those brave young men and women home. Time to make what they fought and died for lead to meaningful change in America. They have earned that.