The recent tragedies we’ve seen, particularly in Paris, inevitably have led to calls to, “Do something,” with the transitive verb being pronounced as if spelled with triple to quintuple lower-case o’s.
It’s all-too-obvious that only various sorts of military action can qualify as “deeds,” when questions of the, “Yes, but what are we going to do?” sort are asked. It’s readily apparent to the questioner that the vicious criminals who did these ugly things are dreaming of bringing USA and/or our NATO allies into a full-scale war in Syria, et cetera.
While these religious fanatics dream of adventure, war and martyrdom, more calculating people, all over the Atlantic world, enjoy visions of large denomination paper currency bills wafting their greedy way on the winds of war. Their fanaticism is mercenary.
Think of the Middle East as a seething cauldron of resentment and deprivation. I’ve seen estimates that as much as $5 trillion has been wasted — oh, I mean spent — in the War on Terror since 9/11. Think of those dollars, and the military actions they buy, as bits of cooking gas keeping that big kettle simmering, with every little rising bubble a manifestation of death and destruction. Meanwhile, even $1 trillion (a million-million!) in well-managed giveaways would significantly lessen the deprivation that keeps the kettle hot.
As an alternative, non-violence advocates would call for a moratorium on arms shipments to the area, hopefully leading to a full-fledged embargo and a comprehensive settlement — in Kurdistan, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Yemen and so on — to be worked out by all interested parties. We also must restrain our Saudi and Turkish “allies'” support for the radicals.
As for ISIS, the minimum action that can prevent their territorial advance will serve us best, because their stupid will then eat ’em up, if we just let them self-destruct.
James Silin
Whitefield
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