September 11th and the Causes of Terrorism
There's been quite a bit of press about September 11th since today is the 5th anniversary. It seems to be mainly press, as I haven't noticed anyone chatting about it outside the media, but I'll take a swipe at it anyway.
I'm focused on the causes of terrorism, or more particularly, the reasons why terrorists would attack the United States. One popular notion, often espoused by President Bush, is that they hate us because we love freedom and democracy. I tried to find a nice way to say it but the best I can do is this: that's a load of crap.
We are hated by many because of our decades-long policy of intervening in the affairs of other countries. We have troops all over the world. We have supported unsavory insurgents in some countries (especially South America but also Afghanistan and Iraq) and unsavory governments in others (such as Pakistan). There's always some kind of rationale for our involvement. Sometimes we act for the right reasons and on occasion we even do good things. But on balance our interventions across the world have led to little progress for our own interests, and even less for all these places we're mucking around. Meanwhile our presence and interventions lead many people to dislike us.
Imagine if you and your wife were having a fight, and your neighbor came over and kept saying your wife was right and you were wrong. You might get a bit annoyed at your neighbor. If your wife has any sense she'd be annoyed at him too.
Nowhere in the discussion about 9-11 do we see anyone advocating a less interventionist foreign policy. I'll say it. We should stop wasting money maintaining troops all over the world and stop wasting money intervening in the domestic affairs of other countries. Instead we should defend our own borders and take care of our own problems.
Keep in mind that our interventionist foreign policy costs over 10% of the federal budget (and maybe 20%). Add to that the costs of phony efforts to defend ourselves from terrorists who only want to attack us because we're wasting money messing around in their countries, and you're probably to 25% of the budget. So we're spending about $500 billion a year (or nearly $2000 per person - including children) to make ourselves less safe while accomplishing little of substance anywhere.
I'm focused on the causes of terrorism, or more particularly, the reasons why terrorists would attack the United States. One popular notion, often espoused by President Bush, is that they hate us because we love freedom and democracy. I tried to find a nice way to say it but the best I can do is this: that's a load of crap.
We are hated by many because of our decades-long policy of intervening in the affairs of other countries. We have troops all over the world. We have supported unsavory insurgents in some countries (especially South America but also Afghanistan and Iraq) and unsavory governments in others (such as Pakistan). There's always some kind of rationale for our involvement. Sometimes we act for the right reasons and on occasion we even do good things. But on balance our interventions across the world have led to little progress for our own interests, and even less for all these places we're mucking around. Meanwhile our presence and interventions lead many people to dislike us.
Imagine if you and your wife were having a fight, and your neighbor came over and kept saying your wife was right and you were wrong. You might get a bit annoyed at your neighbor. If your wife has any sense she'd be annoyed at him too.
Nowhere in the discussion about 9-11 do we see anyone advocating a less interventionist foreign policy. I'll say it. We should stop wasting money maintaining troops all over the world and stop wasting money intervening in the domestic affairs of other countries. Instead we should defend our own borders and take care of our own problems.
Keep in mind that our interventionist foreign policy costs over 10% of the federal budget (and maybe 20%). Add to that the costs of phony efforts to defend ourselves from terrorists who only want to attack us because we're wasting money messing around in their countries, and you're probably to 25% of the budget. So we're spending about $500 billion a year (or nearly $2000 per person - including children) to make ourselves less safe while accomplishing little of substance anywhere.
posted by Albany Lawyer at 9:40 PM
1 Comments:
Well said, it seems the mere mention of the long history of foreign interventions and military adventurism is taboo in popular public debate. Many people appear to have a mental block to even accept the possibility that the dim view that many people in the world have of the U.S. is tied to our overreaching foreign policies.
Have most people simply submitted to the flawed rationale that our (cough) enlightened leadership knows best and have done best for our Republic?
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