Friday, September 14, 2012

"You can't kill them all" and other foreign policy proverbs

Some thoughts as relevant now as 10 years ago when we were getting ready to launch the war on Iraq.

1. You can't kill them all.
Think Vietnam.  They keep coming and coming and eventually you just have to go home.

2. Genocide isn't polite.
Don't find yourself celebrating at the bar with Satan after all the _____ are finally dead.  Jesus certainly won't be celebrating with you.  How many do you have to kill before you are the bad guy or at least as bad as the people you're trying to "punish"?

3. Pull out the plank.
Most of us don't set cars on fire.  But I have to smile when I hear Americans wishing those Muslims would all die.  Wait, isn't that what some of them are saying about us?  Same heart.

4. Not everyone's stupid.
Most Egyptians went to work today.  Educated Egyptians would like the idiots out in the streets to go home too.

5. Hit the right target.
Don't hit people that didn't hit you.  Don't invade Iraq when a group hanging out in Afghanistan attacked you.

6. Don't stomp on an anthill.
It just makes the ants you didn't kill angry... and stirs up those who weren't.  After 9-11 we had the sympathy of the world.  After Iraq...

1 comment:

::athada:: said...

Add another mandatory h.s. course for graduating... World History with a large multicultural education spin. We can afford ignorance of when exactly the Roman empire fell under which ruler for what exact reason... but not basic facts about existing cultures that we trade with, fight with, vote with. Much more important to understand the basics of Latino/a culture than learn a little Spanish language that will soon be completely forgotten.

While their minds are still moldable, brainwash them with radical ideas like respect, empathy, understanding, compassion, pluralism, etc.