SharedThought

I have this theory about terrorists and the policy of fighting them “over there”, so we don’t have to fight them here. In this theory, I compare terrorists to mold. Here’s how it goes.

Many people have mold problems in their houses, boats, or whatever. There are a couple ways to look at the problem. You can go out and purchase mold killing chemicals, and drying agents, and then go around and kill all the mold you see; at the base of walls, the floor, behind the toilet, under the rug, etc.; and treat the surface with the drying agents to slow down the spread of mold.

The flaw in this logic is, you haven’t done anything to identify the source(s), or taken the steps necessary to prevent the recurrence of the problem. Without this research, you are merely treating the symptom of a greater problem. The mold does not spring out of a vacuum-there are conditions which are conducive to its growth. Absent the elimination or mediation of the source of the mold, it keeps coming back over and over.

All you end up doing is killing the mold when it becomes visible. Get it?

Once the identification of the probable or proximate cause is made, then the logical course would be to formulate a strategy to remedy the situation. In the case of mold, once you find the source of moisture, the case is usually solved. You fix the leak, you dry the area, the mold dies out on its own.

We may choose to kill the terrorists when and where we find them, and continue to kill them whenever and wherever they appear. However, there is no possible way to kill them all if the conditions which produced them in the first place remain extant. There will always be another terrorist produced to take the place of the last one killed.

The way to achieve true progress in the greater fight is to first identify the source of the problem. Is it economic? Is it philosophical? Is it due to ecumenical threat? Other external stimuli? i.e. U.S. foreign policy? Or?

In the case of terrorism, what is the true reason for the hate of which we are the object? Do the homework, the “hard work”, to understand and identify the real motivation for this hate, and you are a long way toward solving the problem. As they say in a certain twelve-step program, first you have to admit you have a problem.

In the case of Iraq, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, et al, President Bush has yet to admit that we are part of the problem, not just victims. The hard work has yet to be done. We need to have vision-first, to see the proper course, and then, the conviction to take it. The prosecution of war to express your point of view is not vision; it is direct evidence of failure of vision.

Again, to paraphrase that certain program:

grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference

Real courage does not come while wielding a gun. I have always kept hope for wisdom in our current leadership, but continue to suffer from disappointment. It is for this reason, above all else, we need to remove President Bush and his administration from power.

The Terrorists and mold by SharedThought, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 8th, 2004 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.