Or any number of situations where someone wants to act violently? Sometimes you have to use force. One should always work toward a peaceful, non violent solution of course. But, it it's not possible then one has to work toward inflicting the least amount of harm especially on people that are innocent. That being said I will not lose sleep over dead terrorists. But, I do weep for some of the misguided efforts in the war against terrorism.

The choice facing Iraq and Syria is not violence vs non-violence, it's violence with Western involvement vs violence without Western involvement.

Start with water and hospitals, go from there...farms, schools, factories...

Better than destroying, which just begets more destruction, like killing does.

Can you explain what exactly you are envisioning here?

Also China is the lowest cost and increasingly best value contractor for large scale projects.


Not nixing your proposal but just pointing out trade offs.

Start with Iran for what we did in 1953 and Guatemala for 1954 and work forward.

Edward Bernays, 'Father of Modern Propaganda,' helped CIA overthrow democracy in Guatemala in 1954. Please scroll down to pages 10-12 for specifics:

http://www.slideshare.net/PatrickWarren09/use-of-propaganda-in-the-cia-controlled-guatemalan-revolution-of-1954-removed-a-democratically-elected-leader-7291102

In fact, American-made schools and factories could even be seen as provocative in places where we have caused damage.

The alternative is in our faces.

would be a good start.
The whole of the bush/cheney administration would be where to find them

... get rid of those 3 billion barrels of oil and
move to clean, alternative energy, leaving us
no fucking reason at all to stay in the ME,
where we have no business interfering anyway.

Empires were still built. Wars were still fought.

Quit buying their oil and quit selling them anything, especially military equipment.

That will take lots of intelligence work, international diplomatic "violence" etc. It will be far more effective than a direct armed response - but not as viscerally satisfying of course.

You hit the nail square on the head with this one.

Seek out ways to integrate disaffected immigrant populations instead of marginalizing them

Work towards humanitarian goals in the ME, not military goals.

Get our troops out of the ME - we're doing far, far more damage being there wreaking havoc

Move the world off oil and onto renewables asap