Want to effectively fight terrorism?

[RestoreGore]

I'm no diplomat (although I honestly think I could do a better job of it than the asses we have now) but to me, the only effective way to fight much of the terrorism we see in this world is to work to eradicate poverty in this world without the injection of political pretense.

If you look at the areas of the world where many of these terrorist organizations exist, you will find they are in poorer underdeveloped countries or territories where people are more vulnerable due to desperation, anger, and hopelessness. They are areas of the world where there is no hope because of political or religious persecution, poverty, hunger, and perpetual war, that continues the cycle of hatred from generation to generation.

The Palestinian people have been exposed to such conditions for decades and are now being starved by lack of food and water, intense poverty, and religious persecution. Isn't it logical to presume that since violence, war, death, and persecution is only causing violence, that truly working to give them hope, to feed them, and give them a chance to regain hope in their lives, would cause them to reevaluate why they do what they do?

Is it really not as simple as working out something whereby their people who belong there as well could have more land to live on to sustain their growing population? To tear down the walls? Should we not be working for more diplomatic peaceful solutions for our future generations to pass on instead of the same legacy that led us here? Or is it truly too late? If it is too late (which I do not want to believe,) it is because there was no sincere policy of goodwill and intentions, just political powerplaying which sucks the humanity out of everything it touches.

And what of the genocide in Darfur? We sit while people continue to die. We sit while people continue to be raped, beaten, terrorized, and STARVED TO DEATH. We sit while millions die of PREVENTABLE diseases in Africa. Why are we not sending this president of Sudan to the World Court? Why are we not joining together as a world community in one voice to shout these murderers down? Again, political power playing trumping morality and we allow it to happen.

More than 2/3 of this world lives on less than 2 dollars a day, and we wonder why we have terrorism in this world? We wonder why people revolt? We wonder why people are angry? We wonder why so many are dying? Even in our own country that touts itself as the "richest country in the world", over 14 MILLION children will go hungry today... Does anyone think that gives us the moral highground in telling any other country how to live? We can't even take care of our own!

Could the answer to our future simply be in finding our own moral compass without the political pretense and FEEDING PEOPLE regardless of where they live in this world be it Sudan, North Korea, Iran, Mexico, Canada, or our own country? It reminds me of the words to a song called 'Fly Like An Eagle'. The words really do express to me how simple the answer would be if we all joined in:

"Feed the babies who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children with no shoes on their feet
House the people living in the street"

So while arrogant, self righteous Armani suited political whores travel the world getting photo ops to make us think they know diplomacy when all they practice is political hypocrisy, is the answer simply to just take the resources we already have, get over our barriers of religious and political hate that force us to carry on a foreign policy that kills, and just FEED THE PEOPLE?

I have always maintained that bombs do nothing to effectively fight terrorism. You cannot and will never bomb terrorism out of this world. However, in a world where people of all nations have equal access to opportunity, to jobs, to learning self-sufficiency, to being allowed to practice their religion in peace, and a world where the environment is cherished and not defiled without the arrogant PREEMPTIVE WAR of countries who think they own this world, you have relative peace.

Unfortunately, we must concede that there will always be dictators and persecution, but when we enter the realm of interdependency where we truly help our world neighbors as equals not by exploiting their pain but by giving them the tools to ease it, I see a world where such things would eventually become a rarity. And believe me, it is much more courageous to work for peace than it is to wage war. Any leader can push a button on a country whose face he or she has not looked upon, but to sit face to face with your enemy to broker a peace takes a courage and conviction beyond all that we have now. Just as with the climate crisis, we have the resources we need to solve that crisis as well, and the link that binds it all together is MORALITY.

However, apart from this I am also mindful that much of the terrorism in this world now is state sponsored terrorism. It is terrorism backed by criminal regimes, governments, clandestine government organizations, and other political factions that seek to continue this cycle of hatred and death for their own benefit. Which then brings us to the conundrum we face: How do we fight this type of terrorism when it is sponsored by countries that have gained the money and power necessary to sustain the suffering (many times through the taxes and votes of the very people in those countries) to the point where the people under them have no strength to then fight it? That is the question of the day and where we find ourselves right now in this world.

However, for a good part of this world that needs their people fed and nurtured in other ways, I believe we as a nation, but more importantly as human beings with a conscience must do all in our power to see that those children now living in areas of this world rife with poverty are not again exposed to the tactics that have failed over and over again over all of these years, thus leading them and our children to a world where this cycle of hate is never broken. Especially when it concerns nuclear power. For when it concerns nuclear power, you don't ignore it, you sit face to face and TALK, because the fate of the world is only in the hands of those who live on it, and if we don't start truly taking that seriously, it will destroy us.

As I stated above, I'm no diplomat... but I am a human being, and perhaps that is now the perspective we need to save this planet. Not the perspective of a "politician" who always has their fists clenched behind their back, but of a human being who has their hands out for all to see.
It may sound trite, but the world is what we make of it.

[peacebird]

1. Brilliant reasoning, and I think it's the absolutely correct approach.

Certainly makes more sense than bombing countries back into the stone ages.

K& enthusiastically R'd

:toast:

[RestoreGore]

13. It sure is...

But then this 'war on terror' is simply a commodity to be used by the powerbrokers who wish to reap more benefits at the expense of the poor and weak. They use fear to paralyze humanity. They use bombs to exacerbate hatred to keep their own status quo. It is time for their charade to be exposed for what it is, because the enemies we are making are children who will carry the torch for hate and intolernance rather than using it to light the way to a future of peace, and that is simply unacceptable in order for humanity to survive. Thanks for your response.

[lostnotforgotten]

2. In A World Not Overpopulated - Your Logic Is Unassailable

However, the carrying capacity of the earth has been reached, as many experts have alerted us to.

Secondly, the so-called elites do not want to share and see equality of opportunity through rational wealth distribution by doing two things that would bring them down:

1) with shared wealth, birth rates would sky rocket thereby further overloading a precarious earth in the balance - leaving fewer resources for the elites,

2) in the process of giving up power through sharing, the elites would lose to much power by their way of thinking.

So in the end, neglectful genocide is the natural policy course to be pursued by the elites.

By doing so, the elites insure that enough resources are left for them and also insure their continued hold on power.

[RestoreGore]

3. Then is this simply to be our fate?n/t

[lostnotforgotten]

5. The Problem Is Bigger Than Mere, Simple Poverty

In the west, we have overextended ourselves by raising life-style expectations too high.

I live very modestly by US standards, yet if everyone the world over lived like me, it would take 2.1 earths to sustain them.

The problem we face is primarily overpopulation.

You can judge Earth's carrying capacity (ecological footprint) based on your lifestyle here:

http://www.earthday.org/footprint/index.asp

[RestoreGore]

6. I agree...

And overpopulation is at the core of this issue as well as the climate crisis (water crisis) as we look to the future, and in many countries it is overpopulation spawned by ignorance, lack of education, and poverty. It most certainly is a vicious cycle that there are no easy answers to. But again, I suppose that I simply see that for all of the suffering in this world, much of it could be alleviated if we got beyond the "red tape" of this life and just helped these people. For looking at all of this, I too feel so helpless.

[lostnotforgotten]

8. I Agree That We Could Alleviate The Suffering And Should Do So

This might be approached by a combination of relief and education that leads to a smaller world population in three to ten generations: 60 to 200 hundred years.

But ask oneself this simple question.

Where will the political will come from to manifest such a global change when so many peoples feel aggrieved and the only organization for manifesting this change is constantly thwarted by the US?

[RestoreGore]

11. Good question...

Which means the answer to it is to go around politics to get results.

[lostnotforgotten]

16. Yes - But Be Prepared For The Reprocussians

As soon as any mass movement, that upsets the powers that be (TPTB), becomes viable , those same powers will squelch the movement forcefully.

History teaches us this again and again.

It is all so very predictable.

[TahitiNut]

15. Why, then, is overpopulation greatest where poverty is the greatest?

I'm not talking about the fact that an inability to feed themselves is a de facto definition of poverty - I'm talking about birthrate. The birthrate is highest where the mortality rate due to starvation is greatest. It's as though humanity reacts to the threat of starvation by reproduction. But it's more than that. It's about "third world social security" - where children are the only hope for people in their old age. Everywhere we see countries adopting communitarian "social security" we see a declining birthrate. In the US, the birthrate plummeted when the Social Security system was established. The correlation isn't accidental, imho. The birthrate is highest in countries where the "free market" drives the food supply. (In the US, agricultural subsidies and other programs ameliorate the 'free market' impact.) Let's be VERY CLEAR about one inherent characteristic of the 'free market' - it guarantees that the least able to pay will be priced out of the market as that market achieves a balance. When applied to food production, it guarantees some will starve. It's an inescapable result of 'free market' economics, absent socialization approaches. Agricultural subsidies and other New Deal programs relative to food production ensure that those who starve aren't in the U.S. - they're in the export markets where capitalism is (almost literally) King - and the 'evil' of socialism doesn't get in the way of starvation.

It has long been recognized that the ONLY demonstrated determinant of population is the availability of food. This is, however, assessed in the context of an authoritarian capitalistic context - by far, the predominant economic system over the past 3-4,000 years. Only relatively recently are we seeing an alternative economic context creating a negative correlation. It's really not surprising, though, since the predominant mechanism for autocratic control of populations has been the authoritarian control over the food supply - a "starve 'em to death" approach to exerting control over large populations by a very narrow elite. Possibly one of the more overt examples was Stalin creating a famine and starving the Ukraine in the early 1930s. Seemingly impossible, it was done very effectively to exert political control over a region that threatened independence - a region known for its agricultural abundance. Stunning.

[lostnotforgotten]

17. You Answered Your Own Question - TPTB Understand This

"the 'free market' - it guarantees that the least able to pay will be priced out of the market as that market achieves a balance."

It's their version of "population control".

[magellan]

4. Beautifully said

The oppressed and impoverished are reduced to finding hope in their resistance fighters (who are often engaged in terrorist tactics). Hizbollah actually engage in social aid for its followers. But they all gain recruits from the same pools -- those who are fed up with the outrages against them or their people. Remove the overlords and dictators, see that the people have a fair chance at making something of themselves, and terrorist organizations won't find recruits.

Recommended.

[RestoreGore]

9. It sounds like a plan to me.Thanks.n/t

[EST]

7. You have the right approach, although some emphasis

could be put on the other condition, and must be, to get the world moving in the direction of survival.

That condition, as you touched upon, is the hundred plus years of US attempts at empire, or at least hegemony.
The US has manipulated the western hemisphere and supported the murder of millions.

Israel is viewed as a US outpost by many in the me and, although I do not commend binLaden, he plainly stated his long standing pain in the soul was the presence of US bases and troops in Saudi Arabia.

The goal, which was obviously rushed by the neo-clowns, has long been to wind up the big dog in the middle east, as well as in this hemisphere.

We have to correct this crap. The fundamental driving force behind this debacle is, of course, big money and powerful, unregulated business. (read-greed)

This is the nest of snakes that has to be dealt with or all else will be for naught.

[RestoreGore]

10. There is no doubt about this...

As I have stated before, that would entail us having to knock this entire status quo system down, which I don't see happening anytime soon.

[pooja]

12. You are so wise. I like the words "the meek shall inherit the world"

We have sat complacent for far too long. And if you do the research, we do have enough to feed the world.. we must stop using Monsanto seeds (they are ruining our soils and parching our grounds). We must understand that meat is not needed on a daily basis. The amount of space, time, and natural resources it takes for the consumption of meat is insurmountable. (there are cultures that are strict vegetarians and they survive just fine). To change America, we need to rediscover America. We need to learn trades, not trade on the stock market. We need small business again.. local butcher shop, flower shop, candy shop.. etc. When you own the business and do well you will buy and use other businesses... with the internet you can expand your little business and include other markets. We need to learn how to think for ourselves again. The great inventors are a dying bread here. We have been so manipulated into getting that "good job", for that "better house", for that "fancier car".

It isn't diplomacy you speak of, it is humanity. Allowing other souls to perish and suffer is a mark on your own soul and something you will have to face within yourself. We are all one race. We all bleed red. We all cry salty tears. The power of love will overcome fear. Without fear, men won't do horrible things to one another. It is fear of another which drives war.

[RestoreGore]

14. How true

Isolation is also not the answer. We are all one community, and a woman in Iran loves her children just as much as we love ours. Finding our common threads is also in my view the key to finally seeing that forest through the trees.