Why America is losing the war on "terror".

Terrorism is not new, but the way it has been branded during the Bush Administration is indeed unique. If we want to try to decrease the amount of individuals that would cause harm to us and to our friends we have to start from the beginning. What is terrorism? The dictionary term for terrorism is defined as: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

There are some basic principles that we need to understand. First we must remember that any media that reports terrorist actions are indeed spreading terrorism. If a terrorist organization completed a horrendous act, but it was not reported on locally or globally there would be no intimidation, and hence no reason for terrorists to continue to harm people for ideological or political gain. Of course we can not ban the media from reporting these terrorist actions. After all - it is news, but when politicians run campaigns solely based on fear we must hold them accountable for helping the terrorists with their goal. This might be a hard concept to swallow, but it is true. Terrorists want to scare their enemies so they can obtain whatever they want, so why are politicians doing the same thing? I can not just blame republicans with this issue. George W. Bush, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton are all guilty of creating an unnecessary level of fear simply to gain power, and to win elections.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Americans understand that there are significant threats to this country from organizations that wish to do us harm, but we need real solutions to our very real security problems. Diplomacy has been under attack for the past seven years, and when Obama simply stated that he wanted to talk to leaders of countries and organizations that are considered our enemies diplomacy was attacked again. Terrorism and state sponsored violence, or even fear from other countries is nothing new, however the way it is being packaged today is very different from our history. Have we forgotten the cold war? Though the United States and Russia were involved in a heated arms race we still talked with each other. During the Vietnam war it was the Chinese that were exporting weapons to Vietnam, however Nixon sat down with China and worked with them, and even now we are currently working on diplomatic discussions with North Korea, however the president and other members of the republican party completely disagree talking to countries like Syria & Iran. There is no way to increase stability in the middle east without having diplomatic discussions with both Syria and Iran. Iran is exporting weapons to Iraq to help Iraqi rebels (also known as "the insurgents") to harm the American installed Iraqi government and our soldiers. Syria & Iran are exporting weapons and quite a bit of money to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hezbollah is bent on destroying Israel. If we don't work with these two countries there will never be any semblance of peace in the region.

Americans also need to realize that politicians in countries like Syria, and Iran run on a campaign of hate, just as politicians here run on a campaign of fear. The citizens of these countries do not have access to the international media as Americans do, and these ideologies are not just taught by politicians, but also by the media and educational institutions. Just as many Americans bought into the idea of FEAR, the citizens of these countries have bought into the idea of HATE. The process of eliminating terrorism is not simply a political one but a human issue.

Here is a sample of what the children of Palestine are being brainwashed with:



It is very easy to hate an entire country without realizing that they are being taught hate by their parents, teachers, politicians, news reporters, and even children cartoon shows. The only way to defeat, eliminate, or at least decrease the amount of people that wish to do us harm is to teach them otherwise. We need international support and money to create schools, to negotiate diplomatically with the leaders of these countries and to try and deliver uncensored world news to the masses.

Before we invaded Iraq we were told by our leaders that Iraq was responsible for 9-11, and that Saddam Hussein was going to bomb us with his weapons of mass destruction. We were lied to, and as a country, we voted to go to war with Iraq, and 5 years later we have displaced 4 million Iraqi refugees, and killed almost 100,000 civilians by military or paramilitary action. Is it that hard to believe that an entire population could be lied to and commit reprehensible acts on a people based on the word of politicians?

What we need is diplomatic negotiations, followed by understanding. Of course, our negotiations, will always be backed up by a threat of force, but it should be exactly that - a back up solution, not our primary course of action when dealing with a country that is our enemy. I urge any politician to talk about foreign policy, however as Americans we deserve to have unbiased truthful information instead of talking points that are shown on the 11 o'clock local news. I understand that politicians want to win their elections, but there has to be something more then just the winning of an election. This can not be the entire goal of a politician, and yet when politicians run their campaign by instilling fear in the American public I don't see what good it does for them, their party, the American people, or to the world in general.

Let's talk to our enemies. Let's get to work.

Halliburton, KBR, Cheney, Iraq, Blackwater, Bush - what? I don’t get it.

Well. Let me explain. Everything you read here has been well known for over 3 years. It’s a shame that we have done nothing about it.

Under the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush, Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, paid Brown & Root 8.5 million dollars to do a study on the privatization of military logistics operations. This study established the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, which gave its first general contract to -- itself, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, and Cheney worked with the pentagon to downsize the military. Cheney left the Department of Defense when the new democratic administration began under President Bill Clinton in January 1993. Cheney then served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton where he earned at least 44 million dollars during his tenure at the oil and gas service company. He later left his position as CEO on July 25, 2000 to pursue the position of the Vice President of America. During the 1995-2000 period, one dollar of every seven spent by the Pentagon, passed through what is now Kellogg Brown & Root, also known as KBR.

Vice President Dick Cheney claims he has severed all ties with Halliburton, however he continues to collect deferred compensation worth approximately $150,000 a year and he retains stock options worth more then 18 million dollars. Both Cheney and Halliburton have insisted that he had no part in the government’s decision about the Iraq contracts however, the largest contractor KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, was in Iraq 6 months before the United States decided to go to Iraq. KBR was in Iraq creating an infrastructure to provide help to the American army with tasks such as serving meals to delivering fuel, washing laundry and delivering mail, duties that used to be handled by the Army itself as well as preparing for major construction of refineries, oil fields, pipelines, and chemical plants.

On March 31, 2004 four Blackwater contractors in the Sunni city of Falluja were burned and dragged through the streets and were hung from a bridge. It was the first time Americans learned what private security contractors were and how many of them they were in Iraq. The military at this time was not considering such a drastic show of American might had it not been for this single incident. The military was planning to take over the city of Falluja more diplomatically, and this created frustration between true American soldiers and paid contractors. After an investigation it was found that KBR had hired Blackwater for transportation services in Falluja even though their contract specifically stated that they would be supported only by American troops. Under a congressional hearing Tina Ballard, the Army’s head contracting officer, announced that the Army would recoup 20 million dollars from KBR as it was clear that under several layers of subcontracts Blackwater was hired by KBR. This is not just a matter of secretive markups, tacked on through the subcontracting maze and passed on to the taxpayers. KBR may have knowingly violated military policy, which effectively bans its contractors from engaging any security other than official US forces.

According to the latest census estimates there are 163,000 private contractors in Iraq and 54,000 are from KBR, and although the use of private contractors is not a new concept having over 100,000+ private contractors is a far cry from the estimated 9,200 contractors that worked during the Gulf War. Besides the simple fraud issues between Cheney, Haliburton, KBR & Bush there is more to the story here. Private security contractors like DynCorp International, and Blackwater do not report to anybody. They are immune from Iraqi Law, and they are not punishable by a military tribune since they are not part of the military. These security contractors literally have a license to kill and it frustrates not only our own troops, but Iraqi citizens and insurgents. The entire basis for our country, the United States of America, was founded on the belief that absolute power will inevitably result in absolute corruption, yet we continue to hire private security companies that have absolutely no repercussions. Now just add the jealousy from our troops as private soldiers can earn $400 - $1000 dollars per day, and incredible amount more then a soldier’s salary, and we can see that this is turning into a real problem. We need to get our soldiers, and our private contractors out of Iraq, however just in case you were wondering, KBR is still hiring.