Thursday, July 1, 2010

My views on some problems. Part 1

I haven't been posting anything lately and have even cut down on how much I have been commenting on the blogs I like to read. I have been working 6 days a week and have been pretty drained with no desire to do my normal typing.This post I am just going to talk about some of the events going on that have a direct effect on the lives of most people and what might be some ways to make things better.

Afghanistan.
  I believe that the actions within Afghanistan have really hurt the USA and most other countries in the world. We, as a nation, have sunk billions into a bottomless pit yet have done nothing that was originally suppose to be done. If the former President had actually pushed for completing the original goals, we would probably have already been out of Afghanistan and many of the problems that have arisen from it wouldn't have happened. I am probably wrong about us being out of Afghanistan. People in power in the USA seem to think we have to be present in all the nations of the world. If the people in power could do it without losing the lives of thousands, I believe they would put forces in Iran and North Korean to impose their views on the people of those nations. Has the current President done anything to bring the original focus of going to Afghanistan back to the fore front? I don't believe he has and in the end this could be our Waterloo. The surge that was suppose to solve the problems within Afghanistan, as some believe it did in Iraq, hasn't worked any better then it has in Iraq. I know many people do believe the surge worked in Iraq but it is pretty common to hear about some group bombing another in Iraq. When enough foreign forces leave Iraq you will see a large increase in the amount of violence and the current Iraqi government will fall apart. I don't see the change of command in Afghanistan as solving any problems but just adding more problems then as a nation we are able to afford. The problems won't be solved by throwing more money and lives at them. I think we should give the Afghan and Iraqi governments final notice that our forces will be removed within the next 6-9 months and if they aren't ready to handle the withdraw, so be it. I also believe we need to remove all our forces from foreign soil. We cannot nor should we be the nation that tries to solve all the worlds problems. We can be a part of the problem solving but by trying to push our solutions onto other nations have us where we are today.

Gulf Oil Spill.

   I believe that both the US government and BP really screwed the pooch on this one. I also blame the courts for these types of actions but haven't really got true evidence for this. They have allowed companies like BP to become the same as humans and we know how easily humans can screw things up. The problem is there really isn't anything government can do to some company or even the company leadership. Because BP is seen in the same light as a citizen, then the company should be arrested and confined as any other person would be if they did something like this. How would you arrest a company? Easily. I would say freeze their funds within the USA and file papers to have the accounts frozen in any country we have treaties with. The fault for the spill lies with the agency that allowed BP to operate it rig below the standards and with BP and its failure to obey the rules. The company contracted to operate it for BP should also be held accountable for its failure to think about safety first over money. As Americans we should be pushing both state and federal government to really get behind the research into new fuel sources. The focus should be on renewable fuel. I would say any company that comes up with a viable renewable fuel should be given tax free status for a set number of years and if they share the technology with others, they should be given even more. I know that the search for a renewable fuel is extremely difficult but think it should be a priority. Look at the disaster of the ethanol attempt. I think the focus of an new fuel source shouldn't be on automobiles so much as on transportation systems and industry. Many people think that cars use a lot of fuel but when it comes down to it the rail and trucking industries use millions of gallons a day. It won't be anytime soon that we will be able to solve these problems but it does need to become a serious search instead of just words the politicians say.