Jan 03 2009
Weaving the Oil Web
The United States is planning on doubling its troop level in Afghanistan next year. 30,000 soldiers will be added to the already 31,000. As we are relinquishing some of our control in one state, we move on to another. American forces just yesterday officially handed over control of the Green Zone inside Iraq to Iraqi forces. The American military has been making steps towards shifting duties and power over to the Iraqi’s.
Two hours after this happened, an Iraqi woman was shot on her way to work. The story is that she was somehow acting erratic, and didn’t listen to warnings that she would be shot. The woman says that she never heard anyone warn her about anything before shooting her in the abdomen. It is unclear what “erratic” refers to. I cannot envision the scenario, as I can’t understand what vague actions she could have possibly been making to warrant a bullet in the gut. Or maybe we Americans are growing very nervous, anxious, maybe even a little erratic ourselves. On New Year’s Eve a family of American Muslims were forced off a plane and detained for commenting that they had a seat close to the airplane’s wing.
Have we become a more on edge, trigger-happy nation? Are we getting too used to these long, drawn out wars, fought for very vague reasons? Is this reality becoming a part of our psyche? Something we expect?
Recruitment for the military is up for the first time ever. And everyone supports Obama’s plans for increasing the war in Afghanistan, knowing that it will be a commitment of at least four years, if not fourteen. I understand not wanting the Taliban to take Afghanistan back. But the damn has already broke on that one. The only way to dissolve the Taliban, is to replace all the madrassas in both Pakistan and Afghanistan with normal schools. Instead of throwing away billions more on an endless war, of causing more violence, both directly and indirectly, we could educate generations to come to think for themselves, to create for themselves. Give a man a fish, and tomorrow he’ll still be hungry. Teach a man how to fish, and, well, you can go back to your own country and face the problems there.
But maybe its not about that. Maybe its about holding the strings on two nations in the oil region. As long as we’re the ones doing the spinning, right?
