It's Time for Truce in the "War on Terror" so the Real War on Terror Can Begin Before It's Too Late

[Turborama]

Mark Levine - Historian of the Middle East
Posted: August 18, 2010 01:11 PM

How can we process the idea of 20,000,000 people homeless and six million facing immanent starvation, with little or no locally produced food available for the next two years, at least?

How do you quantify feeding and housing 20,000,000 people--the seven zeros make the sheer scope of the disaster far more tangible than the word "million"?

More broadly, how do you help a country far larger than any in Europe and, with over 170 million people the sixth most populous in the world, recover from a flood that literally submerged one third of the nation, untold tens of thousands of villages, under water. And more, in a cruel twist of fate, is leaving an ever increasing percentage of the country without fresh drinking water?

For most of the last decade, the United States and its allies have been fighting a so-called "war on terror" in the badlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. But today a new war on terror has to begin, one demanding an approach and commitment of attention, resources, and expertise that must far exceed that devoted to the now outdated war, or the result will be the rise of extremism on a potentially unparalleled scale.

Imagine the terror felt by 20,000,000 people living without homes, water, medicine or food. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki moon, has seen plenty of major disasters, but after flying across the country he declared, visibly shaken, that he's "never seen a disaster as bad as the flooding in Pakistan." Even as he spoke, survivors are so desperately grabbing at any relief supplies, ripping at each others' clothes and causing such a level of chaos that in some places aid distribution has had to be stopped.

Full article that is well worth reading in full: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-levine/its-time-for-truce-in-the_b_685139.html

PS I'm regularly updating my Journal with news from Pakistan: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Turborama

[sabrina 1]

1. Omg, I feel like hugging Levine!

This made me cry :cry:

This is an opportunity not only to do what is right, but to change the course history here, and in that troubled region of the world for a more peaceful future.

K&R for Levine just when I thought there was no one with the courage to stand up and make clear what is the right thing to do.

I had to edit this post as I read too fast and mistakenly thought the OP was Sen. Levin speaking.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I will tell the OP how you quantify this? And no we don't have the

political will to do this.

Marshal Plan... that is the level of investment and work needed... Marshall Plan.

[Turborama]

3. This Marshall Plan is one the whole world needs to get involved in

It's not just America's responsibility. In fact, if there was enough global will it could even be done without America's help if there wasn't enough "political will".

I'm editing this to expand on the political will thing... After the election I was on a high thinking the political landscape had changed and we were going to go through a sustainable paradigm shift. Looks like I was totally wrong and I don't know how much longer I can keep waiting for it...

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Of course, this should be global

and as we get more and more disasters from Global Weather Change... I fear the social dislocation, We, as a world community, lack the will.

[Turborama]

5. I find it very difficult to be optimistic regarding what lies ahead ...

....and what we're witnessing right before our eyes. The "future weather change" that has been much talked about and long predicted is happening now, right now.


Even though at times like these it's extremely hard to optimistic, I still keep trying to be.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. There are two roads to take here, IMO

a GLOBAL response unit... with people from all over under UN coordination and command. Yes, it will need MPs, but also C-130s, logistics specialists, disaster personnel...

Or we continue down the "nationalist" tribalistic thinking making this century look far worst than the last... due to resource wars.

I fear the latter will be the end choice. We have not evolved enough where seeing others as fellow humans, and not outsiders. Back oh even five hundred years ago that might have had somewhat of an adaptive goal. These days, not so much.

[Turborama]

9. "A GLOBAL Response Unit"

I'm surprised that a GRU hasn't been set up already, now I come to think of it. If it hasn't by now, will it ever be?

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. The closest is the International Red Cross

alas, it still relies on National assets to move it's crap. See Field Hospital moved from Panama to Haiti. They needed two Southern Command C-130s.

[Turborama]

12. Do you think we'll ever learn

Or just continue ignoring lessons from history?

ETA By "we" I mean us as a species.

[sabrina 1]

14. A Marshal Plan, yes. We could change the world

for the better if we only had the right leadership. Instead we are following the path of the British Empire leaving a trail of misery behind us, just as they did.

Pakistan and India, Israel and Palestine, Africa, practically the whole Continent destroyed by Colonial warmongers. And even though all those empires are gone, the world is still dealing with the chaos they left behind. And we are an Empire now, not learning anything, doing the same things and for the same reasons.

I don't have much hope for this world anymore ....

[Turborama]

15. And South East Asia

That should be "practically the whole world destroyed by Colonial warmongers".

Indonesia only gained it's independence 55 years and 2 days ago, for example. The Dutch (and the Japanese during the war) really made a mess of things here.

[sabrina 1]

16. Yes, the whole world including this country where

an even more thorough job was done of wiping out the cultures that existed before the invaders arrived.

I don't know much about the history of Indonesia and wasn't aware it has been such a short time since it gained independence. The Dutch got around too, although we don't think of them in the same way we think of Great Britain and France and the bigger Colonial powers.

I wonder will it ever stop? It has gone on unabated for a very long time. But this country was supposed to end it, not to 'get involved in foreign adventures' which the FFs believed would destroy this country.

[Turborama]

17. I didn't even know Holland had been imperialists

Until I moved here. I just thought they were a small country that were into minding their own business drinking Heineken, reclaiming enormous areas of land from the sea, etc etc.

The really bad trouble we - as a species, instead of just different races, as it used to be - are all facing is that the new imperialists aren't countries, they're corporations.

[ljm2002]

6. As I mentioned in another thread...

...it would be great if we diverted, say 50% of our military operations in Afghanistan for a massive aid effort in Pakistan.

Just imagine what that would say to the people of both nations.

It would be so much more effective than what we're doing militarily, IMO. Not to mention it would be such a morally right thing to do.

[OhioChick]

8. I completely agree with you.

I believe it would have a lasting effect on both nations.

[Turborama]

10. Check out these before and after satellite photos...

(That little scale line at the bottom is 100km)


Satellite image of Indus River 14 Aug 2009 (NASA)



Satellite image of Indus River 15 Aug 2010 (NASA)

[Electric Monk]

13. k&r

[OhioChick]

18. Kick

:kick: