After reading
Senator Feingold's excellent diary on Iraq, and after posting
my humble diary regarding the kindness of Americans in a hostile region of Pakistan (that I am so glad many of you appreciated), I kept thinking about this comment by one of the 13 volunteers:
"We can inoculate an entire valley, if we're lucky, against radical Islam," says Muth. "And it's so simple. I'm just a paramedic. It's just a bandage. It's not a $100 million dollar ad campaign from Madison Avenue. It's not, you know, it's not complicated. Could something work better to change somebody's mind? I can't think of anything."
It got me thinking of the bigger picture in the "GWOT" or "GSAVE" or whatever they want to call it nowadays.
indulge me, if you will.....
How the hell can we begin to fight, let alone even understand how to defeat (more accurately, manage) terrorism and the anti-American sentiment of our enemies and former friends around the world.
And after all I read, remembered Kerry saying in his speeches last fall and even after I went to www.democrats.org, I realized that (and this is a work/thought in process) America needs, no craves a simple, clear and realistic (more on that later) plan to stop this madness.
For starters, I know that none of this will actually happen with Bu$hCo around, not only because they would never do what is best for anyone other than themselves, but also because noone wants shit to do with the US until the children in charge are no longer in charge.
But that doesn't mean that the Democrats can't articulate a single, encompassing plan to combat terrorism, increase our profile in the world and show true compassion (which will probably do more than the other parts of the plan).
And many of us here may know some or many parts of what they would do, but you know that the general public thinks they have no ideas because Frist, Limbaugh and Mehlman say so.
I will also start with the assumption that yes, there are people out there who want to kill us, not "because we are free or American" but for any number of reasons.
The way I see it, there are five main objectives.
- Protect the homeland (for real);
- Cut off financial support for terrorist groups;
- Share intelligence (and listen to the warnings you are given) with other countries;
- Really change people's ideas of what America and Americans are all about; and
- Take strong measures to protect the safety of Americans (and I will tread very lightly here).
I won't go too in depth about each because I don't really want this to be a long and drawn out diary that people lose interest in so I will keep it pretty basic, since these are supposed to be a clear and consise message.
Protect the Homeland (for real)
Obviously a no-brainer but so difficult. I'll even put aside the low hanging fruit like making sure that the biggest potential disasters identified by FEMA don't happen. But, how about protecting nuclear power plants, ports, airline cargo holds or power grids? How about giving "high threat" localities like DC and New York the money they need? How about protecting from biothreats and not creating new bioweapons?
NONE OF THIS is happening. Why is this not articulated loud and clear?
Cut off financial support
This is, to some degree, being done already. But of course, with the US pissing off everyone in the world, a high number of "islamic charity terror group fronts" are being shut down without real proof (as well as other US not for profits that don't suit Bu$hCo's policies). By actually working WITH other governments (who are still somehow working with us even after we embarass them or piss them off), we would actually be able to do more than we are while letting the opium trade blossom in Afghanistan or secretly working with oppressive governments that serve Bu$hCo's financial interests.
Share intelligence (and play nice in the sandbox)
How many countries warned the US about an imminent attack during the summer of 2001? I'll set the over/under at 7. Remember when Bush made grand terror arrest announcements during the Democratic convention? And where did his political ploy lead? Oh, and do you think anyone wants to trust a country whose top officials leak classified information about its own undercover agents during a time of war that they started based on lies they knew they were lying about?
This should be a major point - not only the specific and enormous damage done by those in charge, but "how can you, the voter, trust people that will do these things solely for political and personal gain?"
Change the world view about America and Americans
Things like this story should happen all the time. Plus, many of the comments in my diary yesterday hit on this theme - volunteers to do this whenever, wherever. Someone mentioned the Peace Corps. Someone mentioned other organizations that would focus solely on humanitarian efforts around the globe. Someone mentioned that parts of the military should do only this type of work.
Either way, this would change or shape the minds of people who don't know or never met Americans or only know what the imperialist and fascist "leaders" are doing in their quest to take over the world. Compassion and caring leads to compassion and caring.
Take strong measures to protect America and Americans
To be honest, I haven't totally figured this one out. As much as I am against Iraq, and as much as it would have been more understandable if Bush went into Saudi Arabia after 9/11 and as much as I think that if they even gave half a crap and did the right thing in Afghanistan as opposed to the half ass effort, killing people is not something that I can really support.
And I won't even mention torture or anything like that, because that is just so blatently fucktarded to even consider.
I'm not totally anti-war, but I think that we can't ignore the fact that even if all of the above is done that people still want to kill Americans. So, I reserve the right to form a better opinion on that, especially if enough people read and comment on this.
So, to me, it seems as though there is a fairly simple, clear and manageable plan other than what John Edwards declared last fall - "we will hunt them down wherever they are and kill them before they kill us".
And it seems to me that Americans would love to hear something like this articulated to them. It is clear that the Republicans can't/won't/don't want to do anything serious about it.
But 2006 is not far off. The word needs to get out. And America needs to know that they can't trust the Republicans to do this right - they had their chance. America needs to know that the Democrats can and will make them safer and make the US seen in a better light around the world.
So, Democrats--let's hear it. The plan is not tough to articulate. And it is manageable, reasonable and understandable.
And people want to hear it.