How To End Terrorism

William Blum provides the details of what I've been arguing more generally:

If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize -- very publicly and very sincerely -- to all the widows and orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce that America's global military interventions have come to an end. I would then inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but -- oddly enough -- a foreign country. Then I would reduce the military budget by at least 90 percent and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings, invasions and sanctions. There would be enough money. One year of our military budget is equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That's one year. That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House.

I might quibble on the specifics, but this is in line with my thoughts. We need to stop sowing the seeds of terror. That means, quite frankly, we need to stop terrorizing the world ourselves, stop spending billions of dollars to destroy countries in order to save them and stop trying to remake the entire globe in our image.

Blum concludes:

On the fourth day, I'd probably be assassinated.

Sadly, he's probably right.

ntodd  ¶ 9:19 PM