On the Taliban.

For the last 30 or so years, the Taliban have been a force in the Middle East.  Formed as a backlash against the warlord-ruled clans and tribes of 1970s Afghanistan, the Taliban have morphed into possibly the most powerful non-governmental Islamist group (they did control the government of Afghanistan from 1996-2001, but have not had any state power since they were overthrown by the U.S.-led Northern Alliance).

The Taliban have gone from being the saviors of the region to being the destroyers of peace in the Middle East.  So who are they really?

WHAT’S GOING ON?

Today marks the beginning of a mini-summit between the U.S., Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  The presidents and staffs of all three countries will meet for the next few days in order to discuss and solve the problem of the Taliban’s recent resurgence, especially in Pakistan, where the militant group has approached as closely as 60 miles to the capital of the nuclear-equipped country.

Based on the Taliban’s anti-American stance of late, which included stubbornly defending and hiding our friend Osama bin Laden in the years since September 11, the prospect of a Taliban Pakistani government is fairly frightening.  So how did this get so bad?

WHY DO WE CARE?

Because America caused it.  All of it.  The Taliban gained power and renown only after the U.S. funded their fight with the Soviet Union in the early ‘80s, providing weapons and money for military training of Talibani soldiers, including Osama bin Laden.  Later, the U.S. injected their money into the Pakistani military, in hopes of having a strong ally in the region, but this too backfired as it led to military coup after military coup in the country, and the democracy in place now is unstable at best.

What we’re seeing now is a U.S.-backed group fighting another U.S.-backed group over fragile territory in a fragile region.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE FUTURE?

Hopefully the American government now can learn from the mistakes of the past, and not simply throw money at problems until they go away.  I hope it’s clear now that it’s not safe to simply back one side of a conflict – the other side never goes away.  We see this again and again – in Israel/Palestine, North Korea/South Korea, and even Latin America.  Instead, we should focus on funding peace and stability, bringing both sides to a table in order to get to the heart of the conflict.

If they haven’t learned these lessons, and insist on forging peace only in the fires of war, we’re doomed to repeat the cycle yet again.  Only this time, a nuclear power is at stake.

On Swine.

I was going to try to get through this swine flu thing without having to mention it, but it just won’t go away.  So here goes nothing…

WHAT’S GOING ON?

What seemed like just another illness hitting the poverty-stricken has turned into a full-blown panic worldwide, with people wearing masks in public from New York to Madrid.  The World Health Organization still says a pandemic of the new “H1N1 flu” is “imminent.”

WHY DO WE CARE?

At first, the swine flu seemed isolated in Mexico.  But now it’s spread all over the U.S., all over Europe and even into Hong Kong and Korea, along with a handful of other countries.  It’s still worst in Mexico, however, with death counts of up to 150, depending on who you listen to.  Mexico City has been shut down for days, a 9-million-person ghost town.

Cases outside of Mexico, thankfully, have been mild in comparison, and only one death has been attributed to the new flu outside that country’s borders.  But with nearly 300 confirmed cases in the U.S. alone, we shouldn’t completely ignore it.

I’m impressed with the school systems in Texas that have closed down, because I know many parents who would send their children to school with pneumonia, let alone a flu.  Even in Texas, sometimes governments have to step in to save people from themselves.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

Not much, except get vaccinated and wait it out.  The U.S. Center for Disease control is working on a specific vaccine for this flu, but common flu therapies have been found to be effective.

And don’t worry about eating pig products.  That has nothing at all to do with the swine flu, even though Egypt would beg to differ: authorities there are slaughtering the nation’s entire stock of the animals.

Mainly, I think we just need to stay calm, wash our hands, and stay home if we feel under the weather.  I have a feeling that this, too, shall pass.

On the 2-party system.

In my opinion, the American political process is broken.  For many years, the “right” and “left” wings have been drifting, leaving more and more people disenfranchised, with no one in office who truly represents their views.  This became obvious to me in the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry, which many people (including myself) saw as a vote for the “lesser of two evils,” and was highlighted in the 2008 election between Obama and McCain, whom many vocal Republicans saw as too liberal.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

OnTuesday, a Pennsylvania senator switched sides.  Arlen Specter, a Republican for the last 29 years, transferred his allegiance to the Democratic party, saying that his old party had drifted too far to the right, and that his personal views no longer aligned with those of his fellow Republicans.

Specter, one of only three Republicans to approve President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package, has always differed from the party lines on several issues, including abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research, but now those “party lines” differ from him on quite a bit more.  He saw no more room for moderates in the Republican Party.

Specter said that he would not be an automatic Democratic vote, however, and certainly has not been in the past, backing conservative Supreme Court nominees, the war in Iraq, and many other traditionally Republican policies.

Specter’s detractors say his switch was simply an act of “political self-preservation,” as he was trailing in the polls leading up to the Pennsylvania Republican Primary to Patrick J. Toomey, a fiscal conservative who has sponsored challenges against Republicans who have strayed from conservative principles.

WHY DO WE CARE?

I see this as the dawn of a new era.  The Republican party is narrowing their base toward the extreme right of the political spectrum, for all intents and purposes forcing Moderates out of the party.  (In Specter’s case, they took advantage of the Primary system – Toomey leads in the Republican primary, where only the most outspoken Republicans vote, causing Specter, whose views  don’t align with the extreme right, to be eliminated before the actual election, where moderate Democrats might vote for him.)  With more and more Democrats in the Capitol – they’re on the verge of a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate – there is a wider and wider expanse of Democratic viewpoints.

Specter says he will not necessarily vote along party lines.  Will others follow suit?  Will the Democratic Party become the new Independent Party?  Will Obama be forced into following through on his campaign promises, and have to suggest policy that makes sense not only for Democrats?  Will Republicans get more and more polarized, or will they start to reach out, realizing that their huge losses in 2008 may have been due to their ever-contracting base of support?

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE?

Arlen Specter is, I suspect, one of many moderate Democrats.  Often, these senators only vote along party lines as a symbol of solidarity, to show off their strong Democratic status in their next Democratic Primary.  It seems like a prime time for a new, Centrist party to break out, led by Specter, Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman, and many others.

The United States was founded as a system of several parties, after all.  George Washington had no party at all, John Adams was a Federalist.  Our third through sixth presidents were actually from the “Democratic Republican” party.

Why can’t we abolish parties altogether, and pick a candidate from a wide range of policies, not from one of two mandatory viewpoints?  Why can’t we elect politicians based on their positions, not their label?

Or, at the very least, why can’t we simply abolish Party primaries and just have one big primary for all the candidates for a certain race? We’d narrow it down to two for the final election – the two who have the most support from the entire population, not just one party’s extremes or the other’s.  Why vote for just red or blue, when we can vote for all the shades of purple in between?