Liberal College Kid

We’ve all seen the signs at this point… At least in the western half of this country. “Ron Paul Revolution!” The signs look more like some kind of underground punk band and not an advertisement for a Texan in a suit. Then again, the Ron Paul campaign is not involved in the “revolution” movement. Here is the sign, if you’ve not seen one yet:

Some on the left have applauded Ron Paul for some of his positions. I would like to echo these statements and add that the Democrats should be brave enough to stand up and say some of the things Dr. Paul has said. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about.

Ron Paul wants to get the US military out of Iraq, but he also wants to get the US military out of every foreign nation. I couldn’t agree with him more. We are wasting money keeping troops in Korea for 50 years, keeping troops in Europe for 60. Troops in those countries are not protecting our national security. And we do not have a mandate that says we must police the world. If anything the radical groups of the Middle East’s message has been clear: get out of the Middle East and Palestine. Rather than accept this we go on with the rhetoric of “they hate us for our freedom.” (Giuliani et al) What nonsense! It’s refreshing to hear anyone, let alone a Republican stand up and say we need our troops out of these countries.

Dr. Paul is also right when he says that the over-spending must stop. The idea that we are relying on China to finance a failed war that the majority of Americans do not support is frightening. How can that even be happening? The truth of the matter, as Paul would agree, is that this Republican administration has over spent in record amounts and have run the national deficit into the trillions. These are the people that are “financially conservative?” Please, Paul’s suggestion for spending is to return to the Clinton era.  Ironic no?

Paul loses me on a critical issue, however, and that is his idea of abolishing income tax and with it 1/3 of the government’s budget. While I detest the way this government spends money abroad, both Democrats and Republicans are guilty here, I can’t let the government’s funding wane. Rather, I want a government that is investing in the lives of the people it represents, rather than monetary interests from big party donors abroad. Rather than abolishing taxes we should be reinvesting. We are already paying enough money to pay for everyone in this country to have universal health care, free college educations, free pre-K programs, social security that provides for people to live above the poverty line, the list could go on.  We’re simply spending the money on failed efforts at Americanizing the world.

Ron Paul has some great ideas, and his forthrightness is refreshing. Perhaps the best compliment I can give him, though, is that I can actually fathom how a Republican could support Ron Paul. His thinking makes sense, he’s consistent, he actually has a plan to do something in this country domestically unlike the rest of his field who either want to make abortion illegal or continuing a failing war for the rest of our lives. So, my Republican friends, I applaud your support for Dr. Paul, and if you really like his ideas I recommend you take a look at http://www.dennis4president.com/. Kucinich has all the same stances on foreign policy issues and yet also wants to make life better for every American at home rather than asking Americans to put out their own fires, build their own roads and bridges, and home school their children.  Yes I know this isn’t part of Paul’s campaign speeches but these are the things that taxes fund.

Does this make me part of the Revolution?  I hope not, I think.

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In an interview with ABC News, King Abdullah of Jordan said that the Middle East will be facing three civil wars in 2007. So far, he is absolutely right.

The King’s explanation of the plight in the Middle East is both eloquent and succinct, so I will quote it here:

“The issue is not whether you’re pushing one agenda or another. The issue is we have not been able to deal with the core problem of the Middle East.

Now, I know people will say that there are several core problems in the Middle East. Obviously, the closest to American minds, because of your commitments of soldiers is Iraq.

But for the majority of us living in this part of the world, it has always been the Israeli-Palestinian, the Israeli-Arab problem. “

Everything the Middle East has against America and the West can be summed up in this statement. They hate us for our continued, biased, and unwaivering support for Israel. Of course the fact that we’ve killed thousands and displaced millions of civilians in Iraq isn’t helping matters but it doesn’t change the fact that the heart of the conflict is the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

King Abdullah’s predictions on civil wars are perhaps even more illuminating. He said that beyond Iraq, 2007 would see wars in Palestine and Lebanon. We are seeing the effects of the Palestinian Authority’s recent elections, that Bush pushed for by the way, as the two Palestinian land masses of Gaza and the West Band are now controlled by two separate political entities. The Gaza Strip is now controlled by the militant organization Hamas, which has been dubbed by the United States as a terrorist organization. The West Bank is controlled by Fata, the less extreme of the former coalition that governed the Palestinian controlled territories. Once again the prospect of peaceful negotiations seems like a pipe dream.

The third region King Abdullah predicted civil war in is Lebanon as the Shi’a group in the South, Hezbollah, continues it’s feud with Israel. To sum up this conflict: Hezbollah wants to destroy Israel so Israel fights back which then effects the legitimate government of Lebanon. The Lebanese government doesn’t care for Israel any way, but they really can’t stand it when Israel buts in to their affairs. One would think the logical conclusion would be for Lebanon to oust Hezbollah, but the majority of the Lebanese citizenry are Muslims who can’t stand Israel and thus don’t neccesarily mind Hezbollah. This is how it was explained to me by a Lebanese friend who lived in my residence hall.

The United States has a decidedly pro-Israeli bend. There are large Jewish populations in American who are important for votes on the Democratic side. Also, Israel encompasses the holy land, so it has a special place for Republicans as well. Despite the fact that the holy land is controlled by Jewish people and not Christians I think the Right sees the current situation as better than Muslims controlling the holy land. Of course I understand that Muslim’s are the bad guy to many Americans right now, but historically Muslims were much more tolerant of Christians than Jews were. Oh well, it’s not like we ever look at history when deciding our foreign policy any way.

The fact is that Iraq has not been a stabilising effort in the Middle East. Bush said in 2003:

A free Iraq will not destabilize the Middle East. A free Iraq can set a hopeful example to the entire region and lead other nations to choose freedom. And as the pursuits of freedom replace hatred and resentment and terror in the Middle East, the American people will be more secure.

It’s time that we wake up and stop using the rhetoric of “freedom” and start facing reality. Iraq has not made us safer, it has cemented America as the enemy of the Middle East. There are no easy answers on what to do about Palestine and Israel, but there is a simple answer to the Iraq question: it’s time to leave.

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This could get bad. Really bad. As Hamas continues to consolidate it’s newly achieved control of the Gaza Strip and Fatah scrambles to come up with a response in the West Bank the rest of the world is going to get a live lesson in how a new nation is born. With the disintegration of the coalition government in Palestine a new state has formed inside Israel’s borders. Make not doubt about it, these two rivals aren’t going to kiss and make up any time soon and that fact could lead to some very tough decisions for world leaders in the weeks and months to come.

Here is how I see things playing out: Fatah will try to reconcile with Hamas but Hamas will have no part of it and will refuse to bow to a party they view as being in league with the U.S. and Israel. A de facto Palestinian state will come into existence in the Gaza Strip which will run itself independently of the already acknowledged state in the West Bank. Iran will pour money, training and weapons into Gaza and Hamas will, eventually, launch large scale attacks against Israel a la last summer’s Lebanon-Israeli war. This is where the difficult decisions are going to have to be made by Israel; does it simply try to contain Hamas or does it enter Gaza and try to take out the “terrorist” organization?

The Bush White House must also be sitting quite uneasily right now as they play out their worst-case scenario in their heads- a nuclear Hamas. Is it that much of a stretch to think that the Bush administration could see this development as all the justification it needs to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear plants fearing that, if they don’t act in time, Iran will be able to produce a nuke and easily ship it to Hamas now that the group has it’s own territory? Sure, by all accounts, the Iranians are years and years away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb but why would that stop Bush from attacking Iran as one of his final acts as Commander-in-Chief? Bush views himself as some modern day crusader against evil and has no problem viewing complicated and fragile situations as absolute or black and white, right vs. wrong, struggles. If he views the current situation in Gaza as just such a struggle then I have no doubt that he’s already planning out his end game, one which could result in bombs being dropped on Iran and the Middle East plunging even further into chaos.

Sure this situation appears outlandish and implausible, but George Bush is still President for 584 days… that’s why I’m worried.

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Israel and the Palestinian Authority are at it again.

Israel has confirmed three air strikes in Gaza. Hamas’s armed wing threatened to renew suicide bombings in Israel after the strike.

The attacks come from an ongoing conflict between Hamas and Fatah who formed a coalition Palestinian government in March. Now, their fighting has split over into Israeli territory which prompted Israel to fire on Gaza.

The significance of all of this? Once again, the United States is going to be put on the spot to take a stance on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. That decision, of course, will have ramifications in the larger context of the on going resentment of the Unites States by Muslims in the Middle East. The ongoing strife there, before this as recently as last August in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, coupled with the suicide bombings that are propagated by Islamist organizations like Hamas are indicative of what, I feel, is the greatest diplomatic crises facing the world right now.

So long as we are seen as being on the side of Israel, we are as guilty as the Israelis in the eyes of Middle Easterners. And don’t believe that it’s only the radical fundamentalists that are against the United States. Quite simply, the entire Muslim world has a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to the United States and the sooner we go about correcting that the better.

It’s time to stop pretending that this conflict will blow over. It won’t, and the United States’ actions in the region, especially in Iraq, are fueling the idea that more drastic measures need to be taken to restore Palestine. Now is the time for diplomacy, and that does not mean a piece of paper saying we promise to be nice to each other. There needs to be an independent Palestine, and the sooner that country comes back into existence, the sooner the United States can regain some of its credibility in the Muslim world.

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