by Not Here

Created on: November 29, 2008   Last Updated: December 04, 2008

The republican party itself is not broken, but the current leaders who have lead it astray need to step aside. Once a party built on fiscally sound and secular viewpoints, it is now overrun with people who seem to favor larger government and religious extremists. Men the caliber of Barry Goldwater have gone from being the norm to the fringe; Ron Paul comes to mind. After allowing big business to have their way with the American economy with no consequences, how could they ever expect to win a presidential election? The national debt was at least doubled by the Bush administration through the creation of Homeland Security and through using private companies to help fight the Iraq War.

Yes, the war on terror was not something that was expected, but the overreaction was not necessitated and poorly executed. Instead of creating a large new government agency to do the job of other agencies already in existence, why not bulk up the current agencies with more manpower. Another idea could have involved pulling back some of out troops from every nook and cranny of the world to help secure the homeland. The use of the United States Armed Forces as an international police agency has proved to be disastrous and unnecessary, since we effectively contained communism around the world.

Why not keep our forces at home until we need them to respond to a situation? There is no reason the NSA and FBI could not have performed the same job that Homeland Security currently handles if they were given sufficient resources and a mandate to share and consolidate information on suspects. The increased security measures for airports, bridges and tunnels were realistically long overdue as we left ourselves vulnerable for way too long. Why would anyone be allowed to board an aircraft with any type of metallic blade? Why aren't commercial airline pilots, a good portion of which are veterans of the US military, not armed with low penetration guns? Rather than simply take these and other simple steps to correct the situation, we decide to invade a mountainous country that is still ruled by provincial warlords. Did any of the republicans ever stop to ask themselves why? Instead of securing ourselves at home with more protection, we embark on fighting a war that can not be won.

Killing terrorists that we armed to fight the soviets a quarter century ago makes little sense. All we have managed to do is inspire more people to become terrorists and fight their oppressors. We also managed to single handedly

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>