You have presented well considered ideas. However there is no mention of the fear or the psychology of fear. We Americans have made “Fear of the Other” our constant companion and handed it out to the Federal Government to contain the fear and make us feel safe. From 1650 to 1850 we fought the natives on the basis of barbarians attacking us and destroying our towns and villages. We put them on reservation where we could monitor them. We fought the European nations and passed the Monroe Doctrine, for the fear of foreign occupation. We fought two world wars for the fear of losing control on the world stage. We forced Japan to attack us because we pushed Dutch not to supply oil to Japan, which led Japan to attack us. Our role in fighting Germany was similar. We fear losing our self designated topmost position in the world so we have created the largest army in the world, located it over 760 bases around the world. To be more secure we have armed our so called friends with the latest weapons for defense ( which can also be used for offense), and we have supplied them with the latest weapons for crowd control and monitoring the civil society.

Soviet Union was our bug bear of fear. We lost it in 1990. So we had to generate another. We call this Fight Against World Terrorism. All this war on terrorism is a mechanism of our mind. We do not want to remove root causes of terrorism which are the prime cause for people going wild and become terrorists. We want to crush the terrorists without understanding what makes a person a terrorist.

Fear is the psychological basis on which we live. Unless we accept those who oppose use are not going to destroy us we will not change.

Mohammad Imran
Ringwood, NJ