"Shop and Awe"
Defense Tech pal and Army reserve officer Kris Alexander has a dynamite essay up on Intel Dump now, about how we need to start using our wallets to win the war on terror. "Call it 'shop and awe,'" Kris says.
We have the world’s most powerful economy but haven’t leveraged it into the fight. We should be pursuing policies that capitalize on the success of several private sector companies and jump start the economy’s of strategically important regions helping to create a bigger middle class in the Middle East...
Last year, Bob Dukelow, a now-retired senior civilian pentagon intelligence analyst with on the ground experience in Afghanistan, began looking into new strategies to win the GWOT. He heard about an area on Overstock.com called “worldstock” where they sell goods from developing countries like Afghanistan. Bob concluded that Overstock, and companies like it, had a role to play in our counter-terrorism strategy.
“Venues like this create better opportunities for local craftsmen in remote areas to get their products to markets they normally would not reach,” Bob says. “We can pull these craftsmen and their families into the functional core of the world's economy lessening the chance they will fall prey to the rhetoric of fundamentalist terrorist recruiters...”
By giving a venue to craftsmen [the program] has helped create 15,000 jobs worldwide — 1,500 in Afghanistan alone... [And] some guy... who believes that he is getting a fair shake out of the New World Order is less likely to end up needing a JDAM parked on his head by some guy like me.
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ood Morning Jeff,
I see that you are well versed in all the myths of the Native Americans.
Myth one: The white man took the land. Land ownership was not part of any Native American culture. Before the arrival of Europeans in North America (note South America has a far different history the the North American colonys) the Native populations wondered over vast land areas and often fought each other when they came in contact. There is no doubt that the European settlers moved onto Native American lands but they were just another competitor for the land.
Myth Two: The "White Man slaughtered entire families", other the "Wounded Knee" and a few other isolated cases, that were even at the time viewed as criminal offsenives, where did this happen?
The actual violent engagements between settlers and the Native Americans were few and most offen were the response by one side or other to a specific inicident. An eye for an eye if you like. When Native American attacked without provocation it was almost always in alliance with a European power, such as in the seven Years War.
In short there are few documented attacks, that were unprovoked by Native Americans against White European settlers. The begainings of this image of the Native Americans can be traced to James F. Cooper and stories such as "Drums along the Mohawk" and through the "Dime Novels" of the late 19th.Century.
Lastly your statement that Genocide won the west simply can't be supported by fact. Even the forced relocations of the Cherokee, Creek, Chocktaw, Chickasaw and Siminole under "The Indian Removal Act of 1837" was not Genocide. All these groups are still with us today.
The fact that this law signed by Andrew Jackson was struck down by the Supreme Court is testimony that U.S. Policy regarding the Native Americans was not as you say Genocide.
The sterotypical view of the Native Americans that prevails with in our culture is simply unsupportable by documented facts. In fact till about 1800 the Navive American population of North America was grester then that of the Eurpoeans and in few engagements between Native Americans the Naitve American gave as well as they took.
The Native American culture lost out to the Europeans because they were an early stone age culture when the Europeans arrived with an early Industrial Culture.
The Native Americans tried to catch up by adopting new cultural things like the horse, the wheel, farming etc. but they simply had to much cultural distance to make up. Native American birth rates fell while the European birth rates rose.
I expect that few of you will agree with me, the myths of the "Indians" are to well entrenched with our culture, so what.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Posted by: Byron Skinner at March 3, 2006 03:19 PM