Peace Search

Pakistan complains that American drones are deployed to hunt down, spy on and kill Taliban members hiding in Pakistan. Actually, not hiding, living in plain view of all the world. That’s why and how the US military is able to find, track and shoot dead evil Taliban leaders. Because they are safe and sound in Pakistan. The host nation is very aware of their role. And Americans are aware of it as well.

Pakistan is supposedly a friendly nation to the USA. But they do not live that friendliness. They take our money, arms and other largesse and provide cooperation to us in matters we need from them. But they do this not gladly. They do this out of a sense of necessity.

When America partnered with Pakistan at the beginning of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, many of us winced. We knew the true colors of Pakistan’s loyalty were not to the United States. They were uncomfortable bed partners. That sums it up neatly.

Pakistan is an enemy of India. The two nations skirmish constantly and rattle their nuclear capabilities to one another. Incipient civil unrest and near civil war resides in Pakistan among its own people. Class warfare and cultural warfare, too. It makes for a very unreliable partner in international affairs.

I can say this because I am an American citizen with the right to free speech. Were I a citizen of Pakistan, no such freedom exists and I would be punished if not outright killed for my comments today. Yet we continue to pour billions of dollars into Pakistan so we have air and land route rights to Afghanistan. That is the nation that has been center stage for such travail for so long one wonders why and how it still exists.

Afghanistan – a wondrous place of stealth, disloyalty, civil unrest and infidelity. Horrible crimes are committed in Afghanistan daily and yet we continue to prop up the regimes with torrid amounts of money, materiel and personnel with the hopes that one day the right spark will ignite freedom and effective self governance there. Russia had the same hopes and those were dashed. So too many other nations who attempted to help Afghani's.

And now it is America’s time to realize that the nation is lost to its own perverted sense of self that is truly unmanageable. We should have destroyed the entire opium crop when we had the chance and ended the heroin and cocaine capital operations long ago. It is still the evil that finances the Taliban and the corruption of the nation. Until that is gone the people will have no good reason to build other sustainable behaviors that will construct a worthy economy. Standards of living will not prosper until the drugs are absent from their culture. We know that. So does the world know it. But Afghani's? They probably know it, but their leaders aren’t paid from or for good intentions.

Why are we still there? What is the strategic value of this land to the USA? And to the world? I think it is time we answered that question and took appropriate action.

Meanwhile, let’s get the hell out of the Middle East and leave the mess to those nations to find peace that has been absent for millennia. This is there culture. This is their life. It is theirs to repair. Or suffer their own local consequences. America should have no continuing part in this.

If we had no stake in their oil production we would see this. The rest of us see it. So why not change our policy and leave it to them to solve?

We can maintain our own energy policies in our own land and learn to be self sufficient on our own energy production that is clean, renewable and abundant.

It’s about time we did.

And the largest dividend from this search will be peace. With America out of the Middle East AND Afghanistan, they will find peace. I think this strategy should be attempted. After all, what do we or they have to lose? Or gain?

May 26, 2016