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).

Ron Paul Supporters Keep Faith Even After He’s Out

Though Texas congressman, Ron Paul’s presidential journey has technically come to an end this election, Dr. Paul’s legacy lives on through the spirit of thousands of supporters who have joined in on what is known as the “Ron Paul Revolution.”

“He is one of my heroes and he gives me hope that one day we might actually see civil liberties restored in America,” says Jonathan Dwyer of New York.

The single, most important reason why Dwyer became interested in politics was because of Dr. Paul.

“I always thought politicians were corrupt to some degree and didn’t represent the wants and needs of Americans; that they only ran to gain power or something of that nature,” said Dwyer, who is studying business management at State University of New York: Oneonta. “Ron Paul showed me that there are people out there fighting and struggling to help the people, to regain freedom, to restore the Constitution. He is a modern day forefather. He believes Americans should have the right to do what they want, when they want as long as they’re not hurting anyone.”

Mitt Romney may be the official Republican nominee, but Ron Paul’s name certainly won’t be absent on voter’s ballots in November.

Adrienne Wenner, a freelance photographer and journalist from PA, says she will be writing in Paul’s name on the ballot in November. “In short—-The president is supposed to adhere to the Constitution, not their personal beliefs. I think if you believe in Ron Paul, then you should be writing him in instead of choosing a mainstream candidate or not voting at all,” she says.

Former marine from New Jersey, Andrew Parker, also plans to write in Paul’s name.

“A small part of me says ‘vote for Gary Johnson'—reason being he will be the next face of the Libertarian movement, I predict,” he says. “And a SUPER tiny small part says ‘vote for Romney’—reason being I feel he will spend a tad less than Obama. But in the end, I know I’m writing in Ron Paul.”

Twenty-four-year-old Libertarian policy analyst and activist, Julie Borowski, says she is okay with voters like Wenner and Parker pledging to write in Paul’s name.

“I assume that most understand that a write in candidate cannot possibly win,” Borowski said. “It is more to show a message that we do not like the other choices on the ballot. I believe everyone should vote with their conscience.”

Many fans, like Dwyer, have only recently gained knowledge of Paul’s campaign for liberty though Paul has been active in politics since 1971.

Paul, who formerly ran for president as Libertarian in 1988, stayed true to his libertarian roots when he ran for president as Republican in 2008, and this year, in 2012.

“I do believe that it was a good thing for Ron Paul to run as a Republican,” Borowski said. “He got far more national media and attention than any Libertarian Party candidate has even gotten. I do believe that more libertarian minded people should run as Republicans if they want to get elected.”

Though Paul did gain a lot more promotion than he most likely would of as running third-party, he still didn’t gain as much media as he deserved, according to both Dwyer and Borowski.

Dwyer argues: “The media did not give Ron Paul 5% of the coverage it gave to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and the rest of the Republican nominees,” said Dwyer. “Ron Paul wasn’t given a fair chance in the GOP. He was given less time to answer questions during Republican debates, the GOP blatantly cheated him out of votes and recognition, they changed rules so he wouldn’t be allowed to speak at the RNC, the states with more Ron Paul delegates were placed in the back of the Convention to help block them out. He won the state of Maine yet they took more than half his delegates away. When they ‘voted’ on the rule change of switching the number of states needed to be won from six to eight, they clearly did it to keep Ron Paul off stage and out of the public eye. The vote was scripted…. Of the major news networks covering the election and campaigns, they had a combined ONE reporter who covered Ron Paul. They would come up with headlines such as ‘Where is Ron Paul?’ All of this while Ron Paul was campaigning around the country in front of thousands of people at each stop he made. I went to his speech at Cornell University and there were easily over 5000 people in attendance.”

Borowski, who has met Paul six or seven times, says that, “The Republican Party's treatment of Ron Paul is frustrating. It makes the Republican Party look like a closed tent. It is clear that they are scared of new ideas infiltrating the party.”

Dwyer agrees, and has stated that, “The Republican Party lost at all credibility with this year’s handling of the nomination process. I do not believe they have the interests of every day Americans at heart and are more concerned with keep the status quo then seeing real change.”

Americans nationwide are becoming annoyed with both the Democrat and Republican parties. However, the presidential race remains tight with Romney leading at 50% to Obama at 47%.

Media still fails to mention other third-party candidates still in the running, like Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Roseanne Barr, and Thomas Hoefling, who are all on the official ballot in California.

“Ron Paul is against the Federal Reserve, against the wars, against corporatism, and against all the laws/agencies like the NDAA, Patriot Act, HR 347, TSA, etc., that have stripped civil liberties in recent years,” Dwyer said. “When it comes to these policies, Romney and Obama agree. Therefore Americans aren’t even given a real choice.”

LittleMissLibertarian
Miranda Pagan