We have to deal with Radical Muslims Now but not just Al-Qaida

May 17th, 2011  / Author: Pia Fields

On May 14th 2011, protesters, most of them Muslim, came from three country’s borders, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza and demonstrated in the territories that were occupied by Israel since June 5th 1967. Israeli troops shot at those people and killed at least 12 people.

At about the same time thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo surrounded it. They set fire to an Israeli flag, chanted anti-Israeli slogans and called for the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador. 353 people were hurt by Egypt police’s tear gas. A youth organization accusing policemen used force to deal with civilians. This organization was supported by the U.S government at the time former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled.

It is obvious that after Bin-Laden was killed the U.S and Israeli government are not only dealing with Al-Qaida they have to deal with the Radical Muslim people. They no longer deal with an organization but with people that might be increased day after day. Those people will not act as terrorists but use the democracy and freedom they are supposed to have to express their demands.

At about the same time UN war-crimes prosecutor sought an arrest warrant for Muammar Gaddafi, accusing him of killing protesters. Meanwhile NATO continually bombed Libya to protect civilians—rebels. Theoretically the UN should not allow any civilian to be killed in the protests no matter when or where they occur. That means the UN should prosecut killers in Israel as well otherwise its double standard will create international sympathy for the Palestinian perspective.

We might be entitled to kill or arrest all the terrorists from Al-Qaida but we have no right to kill or arrest Muslim people who have radical beliefs. This world might have more and more of those people if we don’t handle things right. That means we have no way to eliminate them but can only negotiate with them. Since we have to talk to them eventually why don’t we start to do it now? To reestablish peace in this world we have to make Israel pull out from the territories they occupied in 1967. They are only entitled to have what the UN gave them in 1949. They already have what they need – a country, they have no right to make the whole world suffer from their greed forever.

Al-Qaida’s Demands and Strategy

May 9th, 2011  / Author: Pia Fields

One of Al-Qaida’s websites published bin Laden’s last speech in his life. It said that before his people in Palestine have a peaceful life Americans cannot have a peaceful life because it is not fair that Americans have a secure homeland and they don’t. He also said that messages that they conveyed by words were ignored and that was why they used bombs. In other words if we consider how they think they will not act as terrorists. They give us a way to end the conflict and we don’t care. We think we can do whatever we want to do no matter how many trillions of dollars we have to spend.

Bin Laden was already dead and if he was alone what he said will be just a threat. However, it looks like he still has supporters who will carry his goal. Therefore we should face the reality that killing bin Laden can’t make us safer. We have to use some other ways to deal with terrorists such as negotiations.

Al-Qaida actually put down their position there. They want a piece of land that allows them to live peacefully. They also protest that the U.S supports Israel. Their demand for a piece of land is fair just like Israel wanting to have a Jewish country is acceptable. Their goal of eliminating Israel of course is too much. No matter what we should still negotiate with them, get close together but not simply ignore them. Otherwise we have to face wars that we couldn’t sustain in the long – term.

Now Ayman al-Zawahiri is considered the leader of Al-Qaida. It is said his strategy is to set up Muslim governments and control some countries. He was from Egypt where 90% of the people are Muslim and 10% of the people are Christian. That means if Egypt has an election after Hosni Mubarak stepped down, Muslim people will have a better chance to control the government. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s influence will be increased as well. How much support he got will depend on how he presents himself and what the United States policy is in the Middle East.

To promote democracy and freedom, the United States pressured Hosni Mubarak to resign. Egyptians who once demonstrated together to fight against Mubarak now are fighting each other. On May 8th 2011 another conflict occurred in Cairo that caused 12 people to die and over 100 people to be wounded. Five hundred Muslim people surrounded a Church with the excuse of an ex-Christian woman being detained because her new faith is Islam. The church meanwhile denied such an accusation. That was a very dangerous situation. If some powers want to create conflicts they can make different kinds of excuses and get what they want when people fight.

Regarding things happening in Libya, Al-Qaida first told Muslim people to overthrow Gaddafi and set up a Muslim country. All of a sudden it asked Muslim people to be against NATO’s bombing. It looks like they try to cover up something and help the rebels get support from NATO. We don’t know the background of the rebels in Libya. News from the Western world disclosed that some rebels did admit their relationship with Al-Qaida. Even though not all the rebels are supporters of Al-Qaida, Al-Qaida can still have chances to take the power eventually because they fight more desperately.

Pakistan’s government is confronting big pressure from the majorities because bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals in that country. People in Pakistan demonstrate and order their current governor and military commanders to resign. If U.S carries her faith in democracy and listens to the protester’s demands the Pakistani government will be controlled by Al-Qaida easily. The U.S government now is forcing the Pakistani government to shut down websites that support Al-Qaida. Theoretically if they accuse Gaddafi of killing rebels in Libya they should not support the Pakistani government moving to stop the protesting in Pakistan. All those protesting are reflecting peoples’ wills. It seems that the United States will lose in the process no matter whether they stop the demonstrations or not. We can’t use old concepts and old strategies to handle things anymore. We need a new way to work things out.

On the whole radical Muslims are getting stronger and they are too strong to be eliminated. To stop the conflicts the only thing we can do is to listen to their demands and negotiate with them on reasonable grounds. If there is no such grounds we have to make them. The United States can do whatever she wants to do. Can’t she?

Are We Safer?

May 4th, 2011  / Author: Pia Fields

After spending 1.15 trillion dollars in two wars for almost ten years, Americans finally killed Bin Laden. It made a few tens of thousands of people die in Afghanistan and over 100 thousand people died in Iraq meanwhile. Ignoring the price that we have paid, we can say killing Bin Laden is a victory in the war of anti-terrorists. It did prove that the United States can do whatever she wants to do. Overall killing Bin Laden has more psychological meaning than any other meaning. It satisfies our mood for revenge and comforts the wound we got on 9.11.

When announcing the death of Bin Laden, Obama said that: “The world is safer”. Our President is telling us another lie. If we are safer why does New York City have more helicopters hovering up there and needs more police officers on duty? Why are Americans getting a warning for traveling over the water?

9.11 was conducted by Al-Qaida, an organization. Bin Laden was a leader of that just because he was endorsed by his people. Moreover, as a wealthy person he ran around in a cave while seeking his goal. In my opinion Al-Qaida’s number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri looks more dangerous and powerful. He had the intelligence to finish his medical studies and he cut up bodies in his life as a surgeon. His eyes have flames of killing. Even though he is not smarter than Bin Laden by common sense we should know that the thread from al-Qaida is not released and we are not safer after Bin Laden was killed. Just think about things this way and you will know what I mean. If little Bush or Obama were killed as a president would American’s power of anti-terrorism be hurt? The answer should be “no!” of course. Therefore I believe killing Bin Laden has no actual meaning at some point.

9.11’s direct leader Mohammed said that Al-Qaida had hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe. If Bin Laden were killed or caught they would unleash a “nuclear hell storm” on the West. I hope that is just a threat. If this is the things that terrorists want to do killing Bin Laden couldn’t make us safer but will give this world big troubles.

One thing we should realize:
All these years Al-Qaida has been hurt ideologically in the Arab world because ordinary people seeking democracy & human rights – notions that are dismissed by Bin Laden. That means we have to act right, and get support from Middle East people. That is the only way to hurt Al-Qaida and no other way works besides this. If Al-Qaida got sympathy in the Arab world there will always be a leader to come up to take the position of the leader who was killed.

To be frank, Bin Laden being killed didn’t give me joy but made me worried. Fighting won’t stop if we keep fighting unless we can kill all of them. Can we kill all of them? Will God bless America to kill all of them? America can do whatever we set our mind to, why don’t we try to turn our enemies into friends and bring peace to our world forever? Why don’t we let mankind learn how to live together in global harmony? I once expected Obama to do something related to that and give us some changed concepts as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. To obtain support in the 2012 election he simply killed Bin Laden to please the public but not do something that will benefit the public in the long term.

The Publics’ Will and Politicians

April 28th, 2011  / Author: Pia Fields

Data disclosed that in 2010, 18.3% of American’s income were welfare from the government which included SSI, Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment benefits. Meanwhile people’s income related to salaries decreased to 51%. In February of 2011 this figure is decreased even more to 50.5%. In 2010 benefits that government handed out on average was $7,427 for each American. The amount will double within 20 years. In New York State, each person spent $9,442 government’s money in 2010 and $2,903 was related to health care.

18.3% of Americans’ income is welfare from the government and that is not included in the salary of government employees. However, a Government that carries such a big burden is actually facing bankruptcy. In 2011 the U.S government has to raise their debt limit which is 1.43 trillion dollars. Meanwhile we have $3 trillion in debt with over 50,000 state and local issuers in the municipal bond market. Plus our State retirement systems had deficit of 1.26 trillion dollars. The situation could lead to a rash of municipal bond defaults. The picture shows: a lot of poor people tied up with a bankrupted government. Politicians switch the troubles from left hand to right hand and tell us the economy is recovering.
Other data shows that under such a kind of financial situation, over 50% of Americans don’t want government to cut the Medicare, Medicaid and military budget. They take that kind of position because they care about their lives: Medicare and Medicaid take care of their health and the military protects their lives. They don’t realize that cutting the medical fee doesn’t mean to bring down the quality of medical service.

In New York City the nursing home’s monthly fee is $14,000 for one person and government would like to pay the amount for those low income people. A New York doctor used a patient’s name and claimed the same kind of operation fee over 10 times and every time he got paid by Medicaid. A senior citizen who has no particular illness was forced to take $800 medicine per month after moving into a nursing home and the bill was paid by the government. In New York, a certain organization gets $140 payment from the government every time they help a low income senior citizen to visit a doctor. Such kind of travel fee is even higher than the doctor’s fee sometimes. It surprised me that over 50% of Americans ignore the wasting phenomena listed above and prefer government to maintain high Medical and Medicaid fees.

Over 50% of Americans don’t like to cut the military budget because they need a secure homeland. They ignore one fact that America is such a strong country and no country dare to attack our homeland. In history, Russian’s GDP maximum was 30% of the United States. Japan once was 50% and China today was less than 50% of our GDP. In 2010, the Chinese military budget was 12% and Russia’s military budget was only 2% of the United States. Small countries such as North Korea and Iran are not strong enough to attack us. Those two dangers and the big countries China and Russia are far from our homeland. They have other goals to meet rather than launch wars against us. Yet we spent 636 billion dollars as military expenses in 2010.

People might say that we need a high military budget to prevent terrorists from attacking. Terrorists are hiding somewhere if they want to attack us no matter how much we spend on the military budget we still cannot prevent things from happening because we don’t know where they are and what they are going to do. The only way to stop them is requesting negotiations. Carrying that big debt and needing a secure home, what should we do? Spend 636 billion dollars on the military budget or ask for a negotiation? If our public don’t know how to make a choice our leaders should know. But where is our leader? An unselfish and wise leader!

I am kind of upset that the public cares about nothing but their health and lives. That is why 50% of them don’t want government to cut the budget on medical care and military spending. They need wise guidance from our leaders. Unfortunately, to earn votes our politicians just try to please those majorities. This is what happened in a country where there are democratic elections.

UN Should Set Anti-Corruption As Their Goal

April 15th, 2011  / Author: Pia Fields

Why do I mention about anti-corruption at this moment? It is because from the way that NATO and the UN handle Libya’s problem I can tell that the UN intends to order what a country should do now. To prevent the UN from going to the wrong track I give them some ideas here. If they want to force a leader to resign they can use the reason of anti-corruption. They can make the government leaders of the globe set an anti-poverty goal and for being anti-poverty they have to be anti-corruption as well.

I don’t know what the UN actually did all these years. I do notice that there is a goal, Millennium Development Goals, set up by the UN with the deadline of 2015. It calls on global leaders to stamp out poverty.

According to the estimates, there are 172.37 million people in this world who live below poverty level: 100 million people in Asia, 10 million people in Africa, 30 million people in the Arab world, 2,000,000 people in Latin America and North America and 170,000 people in Oceania.

Anti-poverty is a good goal and it needs the cooperation from all the governments. Right now if leaders ignore the goal the UN can do nothing. Therefore the UN should set up laws against corruption and for ending poverty. Resources in our globe are limited. When someone is rich that means more people became poor. We have no way to stop people who become rich in fair competitions. However, we have reason to be against those being rich through corruption for they have the political power. Today a country that has a higher poverty rate usually has serious corruption in its government. That is why to end poverty the UN should be anti-corruption as well.

What I mean is that our whole world should arrest the corrupt people and freeze their money. We should be against them just like we are against drug dealers, murders and terrorists. It is not acceptable that government leaders use their power to steal from the public and cause poverty. If a government officer (no matter what government he was from) cannot explain how his assets were accumulated the UN should prosecute him and return his assets to his country.

Right now to end poverty the UN relies on donations. It is obvious that collecting funds from donations is not as powerful as anti-corruption. In China, in Russia and many other countries people hate corruption in their government the most. A large amount of Chinese officials have millions of dollars saved in different international banks and the Chinese can do nothing to them. With the support of the UN those Chinese ex-officials who stole money and hide it overseas would have no way to hide it as well as officials from Libya and Egypt.

It is said there are a few ten thousand corrupt Chinese hiding overseas. The Chinese government cannot catch them because just for filing a case with the international police they have to pay four hundred thousand U.S dollars. They don’t know if they can actually catch those criminals after the filing. They don’t know if those people still have money in their accounts when they are caught. If they did get some money back they have to share some of it with the international police. Considering all these reasons the Chinese government did almost nothing to run after those corrupt officials. Those people take away millions of dollars and left a letter to say bye before they fly to the Western world where they have democracy and freedom.