How to Prevent Terrorism and End Wars

What is most feasible and agreed upon.

1. Continue to draw down forces and support the democratic government in Iraq, ending the war and pulling out
   

2. Go along with Obama’s plan of ramping up the forces in Afghanistan to stabilize the nation and then in Summer 2011 subdue all major combat pulling out forces and training Afghan forces and getting all combat troops out within a few years even if everything isn’t perfect.
   

3. Continue Nuclear disarmament.
   

4. Focus on education and recruiting people towards the positive sides of religion and supporting education and equality for everyone.
   

5.   Have US negotiate and ratify many treaties that reduce threat of conflict:  Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Anti-ballistic missile treaty, enforce prevention of biological and toxic weapons, Mine Ban Treaty
   

Other more extravagant ideas:

1. Create a movement to bring all religions together for education and equality.
   

2. Law that raises taxes when starting all future wars.  Wars must be paid for directly, including all actual costs of excellent veteran care for the entire lives of the veterans.  War is inherently expensive, and needs to be paid for and part of the discussion before we even get started.
   

3.   Increase training in military for conflict resolution and mediation and as global violence decreases, conflict mediation and resolution must increase to take its place.
   

4.   Have all countries follow and be accountable to international law regarding conflicts, including the US signing on to the International Criminal Court.
   

Note:  There isn’t much agreement on what to do about the wars, and how to look at wars in the future.  Currently the Afghanistan war is just over 50% of the US public oppose it, but that is no consensus on what to do, especially in the long term of preventing wars.  War is a fundamental aspect of our society and we are a “militarized” society.  Global Peace is much easier said than done, and we have to accept the fact that to simply stop wars is actually a process of completely evolving and transforming our entire society to one based on peace.  What does that look like?  I would say that the most important part is what do all the aspects of our society that currently rely on war to sustain them then transfer their energy to that will sustain them? (more to come on this larger question and ways for us to have discussions about it.

Other issues in my platform that relate to War (links don’t work yet)

1. •  Military/ Defense
   

2. •  Veterans Rights
   

3. •  Peace
   

4. •  Drugs (War on...)
   

5. •  Global Governance
   

6. •  Genocide
   

7. •  Religion