“Peace”-keeping
My personal take on the whole peacekeeping business is that it just doesn’t work. There are deep seeded reasons why these people hate each other (or us, or whomever it is they hate) that go back hundreds or even thousands of years. There is absolutely no way that we can force these people to change their minds and live happily ever after, no matter how many troops we send or how many lives we sacrifice. As soon as we (we meaning the men and women of the US Armed Forces who actually put their lives on the line) leave, everything will go back to business as usual, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
I believe that the US military should be used for its originally designed purpose, to protect and defend the United States. If some group really feels the need to do missionary savior work to Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, or wherever, they are more than welcome to do so, but it should not be forced on the people who volunteer to protect America.
I think that we should defend against actual threats. Hunting down Al Qaeda seems like a good idea, because they are obviously threats in the past, and very likely threats in the future. When the invasion of Iraq was first announced, and the WMD rumors were flying like crazy, it seemed like a good idea. The more I learn about it, however, the more it seems like an attempted PR job by the Bush administration to make it seem like they’re making progress in the War on Terrorism by attacking an actual visual target. That or an attempt to secure some level of control over the oil reserves and save US citizens a few bucks at the gas pumps (or possibly prop up the dollar against the euro, since Iraq was starting to accept euros for oil, which would have devalued the dollar)
In this case, my opinion on Iraq comes down to how much I know about it, and as such I’m unhappily reliant on the press. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as an unbiased source of information, and as such it requires a great deal of time and energy for me to track down the validity of any widely stated claim. Honestly, I don’t really want to spend that time or energy for most projects. It just isn’t important enough to me (ie, it does not affect my price of beer) and the same is true for the vast majority of the US populace.
I would greatly prefer it if both the press and the government would just tell the damn truth. If you fucked up, listened to some crackpot’s crazy tale about mustard and saarin gas production, tell us, admit you were wrong, and get on with the business of life. If you actually went to war over something else, tell us that, and don’t give us the cock and bull story about WMDs.
It’s true that there is NO way to present and communicate information without some sort of bias, but you can work to reduce or eliminate it. Something that it seems no one is willing to do.
I’ll just go on believing that everything anyone tells me is a lie, and that there isn’t a damn thing I can do to change it. Why can’t it be changed? Because the the whole social system encourages it:
- Newspapers are in the business to make money by selling news. They don’t make money if the news isn’t interesting, or if it doesn’t resonate with their audience, so they tell people what they want to hear, or what they think will get people to buy the newspaper. There is very little incentive for being brutally and completely honest, nor is there any incentive for divorcing all personal attachment to an issue from the story. If the writer doesn’t care one way or the other, the story is not going to be that great. So in effect, the press is paid to care, and their very caring taints their work with bias.
- Politicians will never be able to tell the whole truth for one simple reason: the US public can’t handle the truth. Your average US citizen does not understand, cannot grasp, and likely will never be able to grasp the intricacies of world politics, economics or any of the other thousand minutiae that go into making political decisions. Politicians who tell the truth, are honest and forthright, and generally good people simply don’t get elected.
They have to maneuver and make tough decisions and do things not in the best interests of large groups of people in order to get elected. Likewise, they get paid egregious sums of money by special interest groups to watch out for those special interests, even when those interests may run contrary to the best interests of the vast majority of people. The honest, forthright, and conscientious politician who doesn’t take “campaign contributions” will get trounced by the politician who does, simply due to deeper pockets for election campaigns. As such, we are promoting and encouraging our politicians to be corrupt and dishonest.
Truthfully, there is absolutely nothing that I alone can do to change this sickening state of affairs. I do my best to look out for my best interests, pick the politicians that I least detest, and go about my daily business. I continually hope for something better, but rest in the knowledge that it ain’t damn likely.