Conflict in the Middle East has Created More than Debt, but Prejudice and New Terrorism as well

Have the unjustified and unconstitutional wars in the Middle East brought more harm than good with an overwhelming amount of debt and tension between cultures?

The United States has gone to war with many Middle Eastern countries.  These wars have been unconstitutional and extremely expensive. The wars have not only brought death to thousands of American soldiers, but also to many innocent Middle Eastern civilians. The United States, with help from the media, has also strung a form of prejudice between Americans, Middle Easterners, and Muslims. 

Prejudice derived from the conflict in the Middle East and the media

Following the recent events between The United States and the Middle East, Americans are now jumping to conclusions that all Middle Easterners are fanatic, Muslim terrorists. Americans are presupposed to this form of discrimination and it cultivates a sense of fear and hatred to Middle Eastern countries and their people. With these ungrounded prejudices, America feels obligated to intervene. The US believes that their form of democracy is better than Middle Eastern systems and America feels that it is her duty to fix these “savages.”

Early in October, American prejudice was exemplified in the Washington D.C. subway stations where very controversial ads were promoted. These ads stated: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” The American Freedom Defense Initiative sponsored the pro-Israel, anti-Jihad ads. Of course, many Muslims were offended by these hateful ads. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s were not happy with the ads either and said that they might “expose passengers to terrorism.” Muneer Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told CNN that "We're trying to make sure MTA has policies to discourage hate speech," adding, "These hate ads are part of a larger problem." 

The media pollutes millions of Americans to listen and see only violent photos and videos of conflict in the Middle East. Americans are brainwashed to believe that the whole Middle East is full of only violent, unethical, fanatic Muslim terrorists who are our enemy. The United States has created a divider of race and religion with the Middle East and strives to belittle Middle Eastern countries and build up Israel. Americans are not shown any other side by the government and mainstream media. Americans don’t know the truth that most Middle Easterners are peaceful men, women, and children who are simply just trying to live their lives. Most Middle Easterners, and Muslims, do not support terrorists and are actually just as fearful of terrorism as the average American. 

The Islam religion is not just a faith, but also a way of life. The religion was highly influenced by Jewish and Christian faith and some of their principles have been adopted as their own. However, Islam is the fastest growing religion. According to the beliefs of the religion, Islam provides many benefits for the individual and the society including: the door to eternal paradise, salvation from Hellfire, real happiness and inner peace, and forgiveness for all previous sins. The Five Pillars is the basic ethical code that constitutes the guidelines of the Muslim faith. The Five Pillars consist of Shahadah, Salat, Zakat, Saum, and Hajj. Despite what many people assume, the religion is a peaceful one.

It is not necessarily that all Americans are racist, control freaks (though a lot are), it’s that they are unaware of the actual situation in the Middle East. The unknown always scares people, but the misinformed, wrongfully judging, uneducated person is much more scary

The debt from these wars and the US military budget

Wars are expensive. The United States is $16 trillion in national debt. Our country continues to spend money we don’t have, for things we don’t really need. If the U.S. would cut their military spending by a half, they would still have a larger military than China.

In a forthcoming paper to be published in The Review of Austrian Economics, George Mason University economist Chris Coyne and Thomas Duncan argue that the permanent war economy—military spending now consumes roughly 20 percent of our budget, at a cost of over $700 billion including war spending—draws resources into the military sector at the expense of the private economy, even in times of peace. They find that the huge defense budget undermines market processes and decreases our standard of living.

The United States needs to get out of the affairs of foreign countries and first focus on their own problems. America has fallen down the fiscal cliff. For years the Congressional Budget Office has been warning that the federal government’s fiscal course is “unsustainable.” And for just as long, Congress has refused to do anything about it, preferring to defer and delay whenever possible. Raising taxes is not the answer, cutting spending is. It is time for the United States to take responsibility and fix the problems they’ve created. Instead of aiding other countries with money and weapons, the U.S. needs to save all their money and put it back into their own failing country.             

A New Terrorism: Hate in the hearts of American neighbors

The false view of the Middle East has caused a prejudice towards Middle Easterners not just oversees, but to the American Middle Eastern neighbor. American Middle Easterners and American Muslims are victimized and looked down on after September 11. Many Americans have ignorantly categorized and affiliated all Middle Easterners and Muslims to the World Trade Towers attack and terrorism today. Linda Sarsour, a Muslim community worker from Brooklyn, explains and has said that, “the fact that we are Muslim means we are disloyal to our country and have hidden agendas.” 

Sarsour calls the hatred she and other Muslim people receive “Islamphobia.” She claims that in the U.S., instead of seeing people like herself as Americans, people see her as Muslim first.

 There has become a new terrorism between the American and the American Middle Eastern and Muslim. If we look back previously into history, we can see the turmoil the United States has gone through with slavery of African Americans and the destruction between Germany and Jews. We can see the genocide in both cases.

If the hatred and terrorism that Americans are developing towards Middle Easterners continues to grow, the world may experience yet another catastrophe of racism.

The unjustified and unconstitutional wars in the Middle East have brought more harm than good with an overwhelming amount of debt and tension between race, religion, and cultures. 

LittleMissLibertarian

Miranda Rae

Sources

Bureau of Counterterrorism, “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm (12 December 2012).

Jacob Sullem, “Anti-Jihad Ads Start Running in D.C.; No Terrorism Yet,” 10 October 2012, http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/10/anti-jihad-ads-start-running-in-dc-no-te (10 December 2012).

Ibrahim, I. A., A brief guide to understanding Islam. Houston, TX: Darussalam, 1997.

Jeremy Cloward, Fall 2012 class lecture, Diablo Valley College.

Veronica de Rugy, “Military Keynesians,” Reason, December 2012, p. 20.

Peter Suderman, “The Fiscal Cliff,” Reason, January 2013, p. 27.

Squad Mekhennet, “Under Attack as Muslims in the U.S.,” 7 August 2012, http://www.nytimes.com (12 December 2012).

An 11 year war for bogus accusations

-Restorative justice could've saved thousands of U.S. troops and innocent Iraqi lives-

On March 20, 2003, The United States officially went to war with Iraq for three reasons, according to at the time president, George W. Bush: Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator, Iraq supposedly had weapons of mass destruction, and because Hussein allegedly supported terrorism with links to al Qaeda.

Bush’s arguments for the war on Iraq were not justified in my opinion.

The Middle Eastern country never presented an actual threat of danger to the United States. 

“..Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons, and diseases, and gases, and atomic weapons.”
George W. Bush, October 7, 2002 

Hussein ruthlessly dictated Iraq as president for more than 30 years but never attempted to dictate America. Numerous dictators, such as al Qaeda aid Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, are found throughout the world. It is not the United State’s moral responsibility to conquer such dictators and shape their societies into whichever way they please. The U.S. has done such in Iraq throughout 11 years of war, and history is repeating today with Afghanistan. With active U.S. military on base in different countries, America has become a dictator to less powerful regions including the Middle East. American troop’s killing sprees have killed thousands. It’s a bit hypocritical in my point of view.

“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
George W. Bush, March 17, 2003

Twenty-six countries are suspected to occupy weapons of mass destruction of either nuclear, biological, or chemical composition. Does this mean America should go to war to obtain such weapons? Of course not. Why does America hold the power to decide which countries can possess weapons of mass destruction? Nations beside our own need forms of protection as well. Bush was persistent that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction but none were ever found. Apparently the CIA had misinformation. Figures.

"We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad."    
George W. Bush, February 8, 2003

The U.S. Department of State recognizes 51 terrorist organizations. No evidence ever linked Hussein to al Qaeda. Though alleged at the time, Hussein was not associated with the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. Bush tried to justify the Iraq war with its al Qaeda connections even though the terrorist group is known to have cells worldwide. He stated later in September of 2003 that, “We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th."

Article Four, Section Four of the Constitution requires the U.S.’s protection of America against invasion. The horrific crimes of 9/11 needed not to go unpunished, however, retaliation was dealt with in the wrong way. Albert Einstein once said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” You can’t solve terrorism with more terrorism.

America needs to stop taking actions that provoke terrorism. Rather than a widespread attack on Iraq; a country often forgotten by Americans to also inhabit faultless men, women, and children, the U.S. should of sought restorative justice from al Qaeda establisher, Osama bin Laden. 

LittleMissLibertarian
Miranda Pagan

Obama fails to deliver and Romney will probably never have the chance to… How about Gary Johnson?

When Mr. "Change" has broken almost all promises, and the other candidate is straight up Mr. Wishy-Washy, is third-party the way to vote?


Obama promised change when elected in 2008, and we’ve gotten some, but not necessarily the good kind. 

To kick off the Democratic National Convention last week, our national debt officially topped $16 trillion on the 4th. When running in 2008, Obama promised to cut the US’s national debt in half but rather has exceeded it by $5 trillion. 

We’ve had 42 consecutive months of unemployment over 8 percent since President Obama has taken office. College tuition has also increased 25 percent. What’s the point of going to college now that the chances of finding a job that will make enough to pay back student loans is slim?

Amendments five through eight remain broken by Obama’s decision to keep Guantanamo Bay open. Despite promises to shut down the detention camp, governments’ abuse of authority remains at Guantanamo and is exemplified by the unconstitutional, cruel and unusual torture of held suspected terrorists and their denial of a fair trial.

Do I even need to mention the war in Afghanistan that both Obama and Romney want to keep troops in until at least 2014? Our government needs to stop meddling in the affairs of other countries and stop dictating and controlling how they should be ran. It’s unnecessary, it’s expensive, it’s killing Americans as well as innocent victims, and it’s creating enemies when we could instead develop peace through free trade. Let’s focus on the re-growth of our own country rather then aiding others’ and let’s remove all troops from all 150 non-threat countries where stationed.

Obama promised not to harass medical marijuana providers in 2008 yet more than 60 federal indictments have resulted from raids on nearly 200 dispensaries and growers during his term. 

Though I can talk all day on the failed promises and negative impacts from Obama, I will give our current president props for one good thing that has come out of these last three and a half years with him in charge.

Obama has openly endorsed same-sex marriage and has fought hard for the equal rights of LGBT Americans and for that, I am appreciative. Some accomplishments on the issue include the repeal of the former “Don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy, the ban of discrimination in the workplace based on gender identity, and the extension of hospital visitation and decision making rights to same-sex couples. Though he hasn’t federally legalized gay marriage, Obama has left the issue up to the states.

However, the bad outweighs the good. 

Americans have allowed President Barack Obama almost four years to give our country the change it so much needs yet he has been unsuccessful for the most part.

But can the 2012 GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, fix the mess that Obama has bred? Probably not. 

Romney is an unstable vote and can’t be trusted. He has shifted his political stances on multiple occasions on issues including abortion, immigration, gun control, bailouts, and tax cuts. Like Obama, Romney has gone back on his word several times while being the former Governor of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts state spending increased 24 percent in three years under Romney and $500 million in fees were raised in 2003 despite his promise not to raise taxes. Yet Romney has promised that if elected the next president, he would cut tax rates 20 percent lower than Bush did. It’s hard to trust such a statement from Romney when you take into account his record.

Romney’s campaign hasn’t been focused at all enough on the real issues of America but rather on the fact that he is not Obama. 

Obama’s campaign hasn’t been too great either. He too has ignored focus on crucial issues and has shifted almost all of attention on women’s rights--specifically abortion, LGBT equality, and healthcare. Though they are important issues to be discussed, they should not be the only. 

Both Obama and Romney failed to specifically address- and did great jobs avoiding- some of America’s pressing issues such as financial reform and the national debt, immigration, “Romneycare,” social security, and the war with Afghanistan. 

The race is close with Obama at 49 percent and Romney at 48. We all know that America is run by a two-party political system, but what do we do when the republican and democrat nominees are both complete messes? 

Guilt would eat me away if I voted for either one of the two head candidates running in the 2012 election. Since Ron Paul is no longer in the race, I have decided to vote for third-party Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on November 6th 2012.  

I agree with Johnson on most issues and although voting for him will not do much, I refuse to vote for Romney and I refuse to vote for Obama. 

Johnson is the only candidate who will immediately bring troops home from Afghanistan, cut military spending by 43 percent, veto all bailouts, work to legalize marijuana, submit a balanced budget by 2013, repeal the Patriot Act, audit the Federal Reserve, end the Department of Education, simplify and promote immigration, keep the internet free and safe, and to take the government completely out of the bedroom by striving to legalize gay marriage.

LittleMissLibertarian
Miranda Pagan