The first thing that I am ashamed to see in our government is the absolute failure to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. I believe the problem that we have is that we have been very aggressive, and even immoral, in our history of the Middle East, and that this must stop. In order to truly do so, we must give much more then a half-hearted effort. For instance, the Democrats already wish to abandon Iraq. I do not agree with this. Then again, I do not agree with the war being as run as sloppily as it has, and I question the moral integrity of our current administration as a result of this. I do not wish to criticize in order to bring the government down, but to be constructive.

For instance, right now, we should be sending more troops to Iraq, not less. They should be put in place to guard civilian projects that are to go up. They should be in place to better train the Iraqi army. What is more, we need to keep better track of where our generous funds are going. We have spent ENORMOUS sums of money in Iraq--to little effect. Let's not forget, Iraq is not much bigger then California. Not only this--Iraq is much poorer. The marginal value that they gain from a billion dollars is, to put it lightly, enormous. Where has all of it gone? These large sums of money should not make us have to dig for news stories to tell about how well Iraq is doing now. Although some utilities have increased substantially, the country as a whole should have already begun to look phenomenally better compared to the way that it was before--in some ways, it is arguably worse.

What is more, I do not agree with cutting aid to the Palestinian government. i do not believe they could really suander it without political suicide occuring. It sends a bad message to the people of Palestine, and to the middle east in general. I certainly do not agree with the Hamas led government, but it was, after all, Democratically elected. And let's not forget--Israel has not exactly been the nicest player in the Middle East. The Palestinians have some amount of right to be angry at Israel, as bad as that may sound to some of the people on this board.

In any case, it makes it difficult for us to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. We have hundreds of thousands of troops at our disposal, and virtually infinite resources compared to the middle east. This should not be as difficult as it has been, and we truly should be granted with open arms. It is my opinion that we have not been because the government does not really care about the people of these countries, and that this blame falls upon both sides of the table. Perhaps we are in Iraq for oil, perhaps for weapons contracts, perhaps for a temporary political purpose, or a combination of them all; however, we certainly were not there for a long-term solution. The middle east in general remains a @#$# storm.