Do We Really Need More People Mad at Us?

The Presidential Candidates for the 2008 elections are going all out already in an effort to gain their party's nomination for President. Everyone is struggling to make themselves stand out from the competition and as a result, candidates are flinging promises and slogans around like they were making snowballs in the middle of the Antarctic. Obviously in this day and age, one of the main subjects which many voters are curious about is the stance a potential candidate plans on taking when it comes to terrorism and the security of our nation and if recent statements are anything to judge by, we've got the potential for some rough water in the voyage ahead.

Recently, Democratic candidate Barak Obama was asked about his ideas for dealing with terrorist cells in and around the world and his response was that he sought to eliminate these cells by going to the locations where they were and ensuring that they were elminated. This was a not-so-veiled reference to the fact that recent estimates have concluded that Al-Queda's prescence in Pakistan is growing. Pakistan is currently suffering from it's own troubles and despite the best efforts of the Bush Administration, change has been slow to come in eliminating these potentially rebellious segments of the country from gaining strength. Some may argue that this is the only way to deal with a problem before it gets out of hand. Some compare it to preventive measures for heart attacks. It's probably a good parallel but it depends on the means by which you wish to go about doing the surgery and taking the preventive steps.

In the case of Obama's proposal he is basically suggesting that we enter a sovereign nation and destroy those who we feel are a threat to our national security. Sounds like a reasonable step but if we take those steps, shouldn't we allow other nations to exercise the same sort of steps on our soil as well? If the nation of Lilliputians suddenly finds that their neighbors, the Milliputians are forming terrorist cells in central Iowa, shouldn't they have the ability to enter our nation and eliminate them before they threaten Lilliputia? It doesn't matter that they aren't a threat to us, but they are a threat to a friend. Right? Okay, so that solution is a bit tricky in and of itself. Perhaps it's not the best one, but the suggestion that Republican candidate Tom Tancredo has been proposing is no less tricky.

Several years ago when asked how he would deal with a threat of nuclear attack on the US by Al-Qaeda he responded that he felt the only way to would be 'take out' the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Now if that's not a case of blatant blanket targeting then I don't know what is. It's an unfortunate sign that despite the fact that we have been fighting Al-Qaeda for a while now, there is still a bit of confusion as to who they are and what they believe in. True that by striking Mecca and Medina you would be striking at the holy city for Al-Qaeda members but this is also the holy city of all Muslims in the world. I mean to put it in perspective, how would people react if they come back and say 'if you bomb Mecca then we will bomb the Vatican'?

One thing I'm realizing is that all our candidates, Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green, Blue, Fusia, whatever, all of them need to take a bit more time and educate themselves on what exactly they're saying before they say it. George Allen is a classic example of trying to be smart in saying something he didn't think anyone would understand. Maybe he never meant to call an Indian a monkey but it is likely what got him voted out of office and led to his not being a current frontrunner (which he very much was) for President.

While the fight to protect our nation from without and within is key to our future, I also think that the main thing our Presidential hopefuls need to show is a good dose of common sense. I mean I don't think we need anyone else mad at us at this point.