How to defeat terrorism

The 9/11 report is a famous document of course, which claimed it wanted to improve "security" in the United States and prevent terrorism coming into America.the problem with this is that its recommendations are absolutely ineffective in actually fighting terrorism.

The reality of terrorism in the United States is that:

• White Americans are the largest perpetrator of hate crimes in America, targeted against people of color. Even when the evidence is obvious, these people sometimes don't go to prison, such as with the case of Trayvon Martin's murder. FBI Non-Hispanic Whites are underrepresented however, representing only 57% of hate crime perpetrators for which race was known, despite being 63% of the population according to the Census Bureau. African Americans were overrepresented according to the data from 2015. Despite being 10% of the population over 50% of assaults motivated by race were against African Americans as well. Assault was the most common type of hate crime in America. Murder was the least common of all. The FBI does not carry information on the income levels of perpetrators and victims unfortunately, which I wish was there. This topic deserves a full post on its own. Most terrorism in the United States is labeled as a hate crime, the differences between them are vague, and it makes sense to see them lumped together.
• The individuals who attacked us in 2001 are not covered by the ESTA, they all had applied for and received visas. They were also mostly Saudi, a country which stands idly by as their wealthy citizens support ISIS. There was also one Egyptian, two Emiratis, and one Lebanese man. These countries all require visas to the United States, and all of these individuals had received visas from the embassy. The Atlantic shows that the total number of Americans killed on American soil by Europeans remains at 0.
• The ESTA does not stop terrorism, it only decreases tourism. Reducing the people to people contacts between the United States and the rest of the world isolates us from our allies and hurts our image abroad. Having fewer people to people contacts with the rest of the world means that the only thing that people see on the news is drone bombing, police shooting, terrorist attack, and more nonsense. The news tends to blow situations out of proportion, as it did during the Köln bombings a few years ago. I was fortunate to be able to contact my friend who lives in Köln, a city I have personally traveled to and learned that what the media was portraying was extremely inaccurate. There were protests but the city was far from being shut down. Reducing the number of people who know Americans will make us see each other as dangerous places to travel, when in reality we are both generally safe, especially Europe. Proof which includes regressional analysis.
• No Canadian has ever committed a terrorist attack in the United States. No individual born in Europe has ever attacked the United States.

If we were serious about fighting terrorism we would do the following:

• Nation build in the Middle East and increase the number of people from those countries who study in the USA. Increasing people to people links foster communication and dialogue.
• End the ESTA program, replacing it with 90 day visa-free travel for its current members and expand visa-free travel to all of Europe except Russia and Belarus, along with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, Botswana, most of East Africa, Thailand, and more countries. If an individual overstays their visa-free period we can bar that individual from coming, but not as a mass punishment. This will increase tourism and people-to-people contacts around the world.
• Stop the drone bombings. They are counter productive by serving as a recruitment tool.
• Pressure countries around the world to increase economic mobility. Most suicide bombers are in poverty.
• Pressure Saudi Arabia to stop sheltering extremists. King Fahd spent at least $75 billion during his reign to spread terrorism across the world, making Saudi Arabia the number one sponsor of Terrorism across the world, and the number one killer of American citizens besides ourselves. This is not money from Saudi nationals, this is money from the crown, which is indistinguishalbe from the government. Despite this, Saudi Arabia was not on the list of countries which Trump banned tourism from and continue to import their oil which funds the government, which is a known state sponsor of terrorism. Wikipedia They now take an approach of not cracking down on the plutocrats who fund ISIS while being militarily involved in fighting ISIS as well. This is a perfect example of the military industrial complex at work reaping billions off the suffering of Syrians. This is evil and must be stopped.

We have been lucky to not have a major terrorist attack like 9/11 since 2001, but the real reasons why 9/11 happened have not been targeted by our government effectively. We continue to do drone bombings instead of nation building in countries which have the lowest approval rating of Americans in the world, and refuse to do the necessary measures to stem the flow of money from our so-called military allies to terrorist groups. These action would actually improve our image and standing in the world, stemming the conversion of people to terrorist ideologies. Terrorism is not the root cause, it is a disease of a much larger problem. Fighting terrorism the way we do would be like trying to fight obesity only by taking care of children once they become obese while still serving McDonald's quality food in school cafeterias. This wouldn't make sense to most people, but is the same approach that the United States government has taken to fighting terrorism.

Our current policies to fight terrorism would be like fighting obesity by limiting access to uncooked vegetables in school cafeterias. Our current policies to fight terrorism only make the problem worse, as the research has shown.

If I were hired with my international politics education to design a policy plan in order to increase terrorism across the world based on the research I would do the following:

1. Increase barriers to travel globally, to make people see only  the bad things in other countries.
2. Increase support for state sponsors of terrorism.
3. Create a culture of fear and intimidation in the media that everyone is trying to attack everyone else.
4. Purposefully and indiscriminately bomb third world countries and support allies which create proxy wars in third world countries.
5. When we are done invading countries and bombing the bloody shit out of their civilians, do not build infrastructure or set up economic systems to give people a path to stability. This will increase the number of suicide bombers. Leave the people poor and angry, and they will want to kill you for destabilizing their home.

This is the ongoing policy of the US government and powerful interest groups.

We need to fight the root causes of terrorism if we are ever to increase peace and prosperity across the world, and ensure that the policies we have in place which we claim are there to reduce terrorist attacks actually work. The current policy of the United States government only increases terrorism globally and must be reversed as soon as possible.

Why building schools in Afghanistan makes good military sense. (Response to today's Colbert Report)

I watch the Colbert Report, and today the second interview was with Reagan's undersecertary of Defense who made some good points and some really bad ideas regarding Afghanistan.
Good points:
We need a time-line to leaving Afghanistan. We cannot be there indefinitely. I completely agree. By giving the government a due date they will quickly put their act together like Iraq did after Obama told them we were leaving. The terrorists act are nothing like they were four years ago and their government is a lot better. (sidenote: We would already be out of Afghanistan, if we didn't invade Iraq, but that's a different story an obviously up for debate.)
We need to hunt down the terrorists and end their lives. He is right, they are radical and will not let up. They must be destroyed.

Bad points:
We shouldn't be building schools, "the military is not a peace corps." This is misguided. Afghanistan's literacy rate is 36%, making the majority of people unable to read the Koran. I am currently working through it and the terrorists do not follow it. Currently, a terrorist can walk into a remote village, tell them what the Koran "says" and lie about all of it. The people in the remote village will have no way to check meaning that whatever they say is true to them. They will follow whatever the terrorists say no matter what. However, if we continue to build schools and the people can read their holy books then they will be able to have debates with the terrorists in their now obvious lying and then the terrorists will lose recruits. I don't even know how many of the recruiters even know what their book says to be honest. By leaving the people uneducated and vulnerable to their propaganda the terrorists will continue to have power indefinitely over the country and region. We cannot win if the people can be so easily persuaded to their fight. However, by building schools and growing Afghanistan's economy the reasons to join the terrorists fight are eliminated once the people lead productive lives and the terrorists will eventually lose power.

Sympathy for Egypt

In wake of Egypt's military coup, I give my sympathies to the people. I hope that they will elect a government that will put their interests at heart and not as some other middle eastern nations have done and succumb to terrorist groups. If they remain strong with a benign government they could become a beacon of hope to non-conservative Muslims throughout the Middle East that Terrorists can be defeated. This will be a major blow the Wahabbi movement.

Remain strong Egypt. Your future is in your hands.

The Greatest Threats to American Freedom

I have talked to many people about political issues and through these I have grown to become more centrist. I am taking Economics at my local community college and have become a lot more centrist than I used to be, but also have found that some policies make sense, regulating health care, not being afraid of intervening in the economy through a Stimulus or New Deal, or looking over banks, keeping them from doing shady deals that put the economy of the entire world in danger.

There are many threats, Terrorism, drugs, shady deals, there are too many to count! But when you get down to it, the one threat that I think is the biggest threat is two closely related threats, 1. The distrust of all elected Politicians regardless of party, and 2. The fear of knowledge.

I define my first one is the belief that no matter what you say the politicians will always only do what they want and will not listen. The second one means being afraid of Websters, meaning not looking things up, which means when you reach a big word you won't expand your vocabulary.

This threatens us all because it makes so that the corrupt politicians really can do whatever they want because the average American will not look up what their Representative, Senator, Governor, or President are doing beyond the corrupt news media on both sides of the aisle. (the only American sources I have seen that are neutral are NPR, and CNET.) People honestly believe that the politicians are out to get everyone, and they don't care about the people at the bottom and the middle. They need to look at what their representatives, senators, and the President are doing from an open mind, and listen to any addresses that they might have.

One prime example is someone I love. He/She said that Obama isn't for bipartisianship. He/She said listening to the State of the Union was a waste of time, and doesn't listen to the Weekly Addresses. He/She frightened me by his fear of Democrats. He/She decided to look at summaries of the State of Union and assumed he/she heard everything. By not doing this he/she is worse than a slave because he/she is being manipulated every day by Fox news spreading only the things that make Obama look bad. He missed one important detail from the speech and I quote: "That's why I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad." ~Barack Obama State of the Union. The summaries wouldn't report this because it makes him look good. It isn't the President who is locking out Republicans, it is the Senate and the House. They should be ashamed. He didn't hear that or any of the Weekly addresses, which means that he doesn't hear this message. When Rush Limbaugh, or Fox quotes the President they will quote "We want the taxpayers’ money back, and we’re going to collect every dime." which makes it sound like he will hike taxes up. What he really said was, "Many originally feared that most of the $700 billion in TARP money would be lost. But when my administration came into office, we put in place rigorous rules for accountability and transparency, which cut the cost of the bailout dramatically. We have now recovered most of the money we provided to the banks. That’s good news, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s not good enough. We want the taxpayers’ money back, and we’re going to collect every dime." The first one makes it sound like he will hike up taxes on families, when in truth, he will actually be having Banks pay back the stimulus, just like a loan.

Second, I hear people say that someone proposed an amendment, but they won't look and see if it passed the vote. You can propose as many pork amendments as you like, but if they don't pass the vote it won't happen.

Finally, there is the problem, but how does it hurt our freedom? It makes it so that when Congresspeople vote on a bill without anyone reading it they will all be fired if they do enough serious offenses. When the media says that Congressman Joe Bob from Mecca made an amendment that would give all Meccans a tax break on said tax, they will assume it is part of the bill. They do not go to the bill, download the text, and then press ctrl-f and type in Mecca, and then see that the amendment isn't part of the bill because it was voted down! This makes it so that good legislation is shot down when it could save the economy. Yes, I am talking about the Health Care bill. We need to not be afraid of long texts and know that we can pull a single uncommon word out of Ulysses on a computer in less than 10 seconds if it runs. We must do this. If we don't than lobbyists that are not there for charity will continue to rule Capital Hill. If we do, than we will not shop at those places, they will close, which means that the purpose of lobbying has gone away.

America, please do not be afraid of your politicians. They are literally your servant and if enough people look and report the truth of what they are doing they will have their careers ruined, which solves the problem of corruption because it will not benefit anyone. If every able American spent at least 5 minutes a day, watched the speeches, looked into the bills, than they would be unable to do the amendments because their in-boxes would be full and then be voted out at the next election. Democracy is strong and beautiful, and good votes rely on information, but as the display at my local fire station says "The Majority Rules, but only if the Majority Votes."

How to win the War on Terror

The most pressing issue today is how to defeat terrorism. Personally, I am not a Christian and don't want to be, I'm UU so I feel that while the Terrorists are treating people in my country as Christians that what I say here is not trying to expand any religion, but to save lives. People have the right to worship
The radical so-called Muslims at the top have perverted their religion and have distorted it to where they worship one out of 5 pillars, Jihad. Jihad means "struggle for the faith." One American Religion, Mormonism has a practice that I believe is supposed to be what Jihad is meant to be, to spread the faith and word of God. The Quran says in the Cow: "62. Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." The Terrorists conveniently forget this all the time. By fighting the Western World, which is mostly Christian, they are going against the very religion they say they are part of. They are no Muslims. The Quran has all the major figures of Christianity and Judaism. Becausethey believe in what Jesus taught, than they technically believe in "love your neighbor," which means that by fighting they are further Blasphemizing against their professed religion. There is also the fact that if they scroll the Quran they will find that some parts bash Christians while others don't, just like any old religious book that was written by multiple people.

This brings me to my major point. Because the people of Afghanistan and other nations where they get there recruits from mostly can't read, the way to defeat terrorism is for peace-loving nations around the world to send people to those places to teach people how to read so that they can read the Qur'an and the Bible so that they can know that by going with the terrorists they are blaspheming against their religion. If this is done thousands if not millions of lives will be saved and Peace can be on Earth and the Human Race may prosper and this type of Evil may go off the face of the planet. It won't stop all of them, because there are people who are mean and unintelligent who don't ask questions and want to mean things in many places. But if more people in the Middle East and North Africa who are Muslim are able to refer back to the source of their religion, more people will decide to follow their religion and do what is right to every good person's perspective, no matter what his/her religion is.

Originally posted on January 3, 2010.