Sunday, August 19, 2012

Response to Guest Post from Steven Specht

Steven's insight into such a backwards society is eye-opening!  I've always known that there are people out there that believe things like that and aren't open to scientific advance but I didn't know it was anything like this story.  I can understand people living in areas where there aren't any scientist, schools or any other avenues of learning but once you've been exposed to a scientific or logical explanations to seemingly amazing events (like solar/lunar eclipses).  I hope that our nations' (and the coalition's) actions there in Afghanistan have a more positive impact than the media spin on it.  I hope that we can do more than defend our national interests by getting rid of those that intend to attack western culture with terrorist tactics.

I have never completely agreed with the recent war(s) in the middle east, but IF we are able to bring true safety, fair equitable treatment/freedom, and fair/free education (among other things but I feel those are some of the most important things western society has to give to the world), THEN we can truly say "mission accomplished."  Also, IF we are starting to have a negative impact, to the point that we are stirring up more terrorists against us by poor tactics or just the simple fact that we are occupying their territory, THEN we should leave.  Unfortunately, it seems like leaving (especially if we leave before those goals are accomplished) would only stir up even more enemies.

Our nation hasn't had a very good history when it comes to international relations, especially in the middle east.  As I said before that we are, in some way, responsible for provoking the unrest that we are now trying to quell.  Maybe we shouldn't have done some of the stuff we did to provoke the unrest, but in some ways we just did what we thought was right at the time without much of a view for the future.  Hopefully, we can make up some of that wrong and bring true help to those we've mistreated in the past.