And so, we continue to lose courageous young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. More and more Americans are questioning the wisdom of this seeming waste of human life--and I have become one of them. We entered into both of these wars with good reason and good intentions, but no clear endgame. What, exactly, are we trying to accomplish at this point? Democracy--freedom--is a noble cause, but our narrow American interpretation of what that means, exactly, has caused us, once again, to run aground in our attempts to establish freedom in other countries. We assume that there is no such thing as a democracy within a theocracy, and that therefore we cannot allow these nations to establish theocratic governments. To my way of thinking, as long as said theocracy is not a threat to our safety, live and let live. My goodness, who do we think we are, anyway? We have made a return to imperialistic thinking, and we really need to get over it.
I sound like a liberal, don't I? Well, I'm not one--far from it--but this seems to just be common sense. If we are going to go around the world freeing people, then by all means let them be free from us, too. After 234 years, our own republic continues to strive and to stumble and to make mistakes. That is the nature of freedom, so let's allow other countries the same privilege.
In the meantime, while we fumble around in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sabers of Iran and North Korea are rattling more loudly every day. Am I the only one who hears them? Here's what I don't get: While we continue to waste time, resources, and precious, precious lives in countries we should be out of by now, we are playing wimpy mind games with nations that could be an actual threat. Our genius of a President wishes to "engage" with these countries by using diplomacy and the help of the U.N. Because that has always worked so well before, right? Is he kidding?
There are two things he seems to be missing here. One of them is a grasp of world history. Historically, appeasement has never, ever worked with despots, especially not the genuinely crazy ones (which is most of them, I guess). Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain before Churchill, negotiated the ceding of the Sudetenland to Germany in an attempt to satisfy Hitler. It was lost on him, apparently, that what Hitler wanted was access to the rest of Europe. He invaded Poland soon after, and few people were actually shocked, I imagine. Concessions to dictators don't work any better than giving in to the tantrum of a willful child. You may have temporary peace, but eventually you'll get another tantrum. We all tend to repeat the behaviors that work for us.
Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan knew a little something about peace through strength. Question Roosevelt's motivations all you want (yes, I know, he was an imperialist who wanted to protect American business interests abroad, etc.), but that Great White Fleet made a statement nobody could miss, and nobody messed with us as long as our leadership was walking softly and wielding a big, I-dare-you stick. Reagan simply realized that the Cold War needed to end and he ended it with a show of strength that was as much economic as it was military. These same principles work on the schoolyard bully or workplace harasser, and everybody knows it, or at least they should.
The other thing that seems to be lost on our current leadership is the simple fact that these despots are not normal people. They are crazy. They will not respond to negotiation, they will continue to increase their power in secret, and so forth, because they are insane. These are not countries who care about the United Nations' opinion of them, or their sanctions, either. For crying out loud, Iran hangs teenagers publicly because they are political dissenters. North Korea imprisons foreigners just for being in the country. Do these sound like regimes that give two hoots because the U.N. disapproves of their human rights violations? I don't think so.
So let's do our best to extract ourselves from the mire of Iraq and Afghanistan without looking too weak and foolish to the rest of the world, and concentrate on actual threats to world safety and stability. Let's re-grow our collective spine and stop worrying about whether the E.U. approves of us or the Middle East loves us to pieces, and start commanding some doggone respect, why not? We do not need to be buddies with the rest of the world, we need to be strong and fearsome. If we really do want peace, let's take a lesson from actual history instead of Pixie Hollow Fairyland, and get back to what works--standing strong and not taking any crap from anybody. Then we can all sleep peacefully at night, and the world really will be a better place.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
How Greed Changed My Life
I live on the Gulf Coast. In the summer, even if I am broke, I have always been able to drive the hour to the beach and enjoy sand, sun, and surf. No more. My beloved Fort Morgan Beach is a mess these days, as are Orange Beach and Gulf Shores. Even more devastating for me, Mobile Bay is being impacted, and soon the rivers and creeks of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta will be hit, as well. Though I love the beach, I have long been a woods wanderer and river traveler, so witnessing this is breaking my heart.
The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is where five rivers flow into Mobile Bay, and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico. Like all such estuaries, it is a nursery for marine life, both saltwater and freshwater, and is vital to the survival of the ecosystem. Compromising this area will have consequences that may last for generations.
I am no tree-hugger. I believe God made this planet and put us on it. He gave us permission to use it. The idea that people don't belong here, and that if we just weren't here everything would be okay, is illogical, even a little stupid. But the naked greed that caused this disaster is inexcusable. It is possible to both replenish and subdue. That's what God told us to do. The oil spill is an example of what happens when the balance is lost. Many of the people who think that we should never cut down a tree, never drill an oil well, and never build a house are just as godless and just as misguided as those who caused this tragedy. Ironic, isn't it?
My dad used to say, "It's always the middle that holds things up." He meant that extremes are pretty much never right and never the answer. Reason and logic are usually somewhere in a middle ground, and most successful solutions to problems are born of compromise. The relationship here among the fishing, tourism, and oil industries is dynamic and complex. It isn't all that straightforward. And placing a moratorium on the oil industry in an already highly depressed economy is a stupid and callous maneuver.
My point is this: Nobody who doesn't live here can really understand what this means to us who do. If you have not spent long summer days looking for shells at Fort Morgan, or been swimming less than forty feet away from wild dolphins; if you haven't canoed these rivers, over and over, laughing with your friends and desperately trying to steer around deadfalls; if you haven't wandered these woods, fished these creeks, and watched herons in majestic flight--you do not understand, no matter how much you might want to. If one more government flunky, politician, or Hollywood celebrity tells me that they feel my pain, I might crack up. This place is not, for me, a cause. It is not a vacation spot. It is not just some pitiful place you see on the news. It is not just a means to promote an agenda. This is my home. You can come visit, cluck your tongue, express your sympathy, and then return to your life as it has always been. My life, and the lives of many others, have been irrevocably changed.
It has been changed, and is being changed, by groups of people who don't know what they are doing. Here's an idea. Give all the money to state and local governments and agencies, and let us clean up behind you. Let us decide the methods to use and whom to help first. Go away and leave us alone. You don't belong here. And long after you have gotten all the socio-political mileage you can get out of our suffering, we will still be here, still be surviving, and still be in love with our home.
The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is where five rivers flow into Mobile Bay, and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico. Like all such estuaries, it is a nursery for marine life, both saltwater and freshwater, and is vital to the survival of the ecosystem. Compromising this area will have consequences that may last for generations.
I am no tree-hugger. I believe God made this planet and put us on it. He gave us permission to use it. The idea that people don't belong here, and that if we just weren't here everything would be okay, is illogical, even a little stupid. But the naked greed that caused this disaster is inexcusable. It is possible to both replenish and subdue. That's what God told us to do. The oil spill is an example of what happens when the balance is lost. Many of the people who think that we should never cut down a tree, never drill an oil well, and never build a house are just as godless and just as misguided as those who caused this tragedy. Ironic, isn't it?
My dad used to say, "It's always the middle that holds things up." He meant that extremes are pretty much never right and never the answer. Reason and logic are usually somewhere in a middle ground, and most successful solutions to problems are born of compromise. The relationship here among the fishing, tourism, and oil industries is dynamic and complex. It isn't all that straightforward. And placing a moratorium on the oil industry in an already highly depressed economy is a stupid and callous maneuver.
My point is this: Nobody who doesn't live here can really understand what this means to us who do. If you have not spent long summer days looking for shells at Fort Morgan, or been swimming less than forty feet away from wild dolphins; if you haven't canoed these rivers, over and over, laughing with your friends and desperately trying to steer around deadfalls; if you haven't wandered these woods, fished these creeks, and watched herons in majestic flight--you do not understand, no matter how much you might want to. If one more government flunky, politician, or Hollywood celebrity tells me that they feel my pain, I might crack up. This place is not, for me, a cause. It is not a vacation spot. It is not just some pitiful place you see on the news. It is not just a means to promote an agenda. This is my home. You can come visit, cluck your tongue, express your sympathy, and then return to your life as it has always been. My life, and the lives of many others, have been irrevocably changed.
It has been changed, and is being changed, by groups of people who don't know what they are doing. Here's an idea. Give all the money to state and local governments and agencies, and let us clean up behind you. Let us decide the methods to use and whom to help first. Go away and leave us alone. You don't belong here. And long after you have gotten all the socio-political mileage you can get out of our suffering, we will still be here, still be surviving, and still be in love with our home.
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