Oppose the US direct air force military intervention against ISIS and in the Middle East.

In August, the United States assembled an international coalition to conduct a campaign of air strikes on ISIS positions in Iraq. Then, in October, the coalition expanded the intervention into Syria. American progressives have been relatively uniform in opposing the intervention against ISIS.

However, Hillary says,” a more effective coalition air campaign is necessary and we should be honest about the fact that to be successful, airstrikes will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS.” Democracies favor remote strike weapons, as launched aircraft, because they offer great destruction at the target without necessary ground involvement. Personnel on the ground could be captured, wounded, and killed by a simple technology that cannot harm aircraft.

And ironically, an Islamic State is more exposed than the non-state actors from which ISIS was formed. ISIS is occupying and governing territory, within a largely flat, not obscured natural environment, without significant air or water transport, moving between cities, sometimes with captured military trunks and its transporters, which are the easiest weapons to observe from the air.

However, the air strategy has been chosen not for its effectiveness in defeating ISIS, but for its effectiveness in reducing the exposure of friendly personnel, while still offering spectacular images of destruction. The trouble with an air campaign is that aircraft alone cannot flush out ground forces. Jihadi insurgents normally travel in civilian vehicles, which are effectively indistinguishable from collateral traffic, unless ground intelligence has identified the particular vehicle in which a particular target person is travelling at a particular time. If air campaigners want to avoid these collateral risks, then they must focus on large assets in barren areas, such as oil derricks in the desert. This is effectively the current counter of ISIS strategy. But it is the least efficient and lease decisive strategy. Because the ISIS is not dependent on heavy industry or urban infrastructure. And it does not expose friendly personnel on the ground until a air force pilot is shot down in enemy territory. This was the terrible fate of the Jordan whom ISIS captured in December and burnt to death. In response to his capture, the United Arab Emirates had stopped air strikes pending some reassurance that the coalition’s capacity for rescuing downed him could be improved. In retaliation for this death, United Arab Emirates joined in. Egypt has stepped up its strikes in Libya, in response to ISIS killing Egyptian nationals on the ground there, and has accepted inevitable criticism of the high collateral casualties. Retaliation is not a new or an effective military strategy – it just offers domestic political advantages over doing nothing. The retaliatory motivations of the latest air strikes, and the counter-productive collateral harm, increase the net disadvantages. Therefore, I oppose the US direct air force military intervention against ISIS and in the Middle East. 

Blog Stage Eight: Comment on a colleague's work #2

In one of my classmate’s blog posts titled “We should fight for globalclimate change,”Kyuree Kwak wrote about the good editorial essay that we should be the one who fight for global climate change for the plane. I totally agree with her opinion and human activity is primarily responsible for global climate change. However, I want to add some part about the ‘paying more tax’ on her essay.

Dramatic changes in climate, such as heavier storms and less snow, are another sign that humans are causing global climate change. As human-produced greenhouse gases heat the planet, increased humidity (water vapor in the atmosphere) results. Water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas. In a process known as a positive feedback loop, more warming causes more humidity which causes even more warming. Higher humidity levels also cause changes in climate. Higher temperatures from global warming are also causing some mountainous areas to receive rain rather than snow. And another study found that global warming caused by human actions has increased extreme precipitation events by 18% across the globe, and that if temperatures continue to rise an increase of 40% can be expected. So, we are definitely responsible for the climate change.

Kyuree says, “If the government of urban countries increase taxes only to help the planet by limiting the emission of carbon, many people would gladly accept it, since it is for the benefit for everyone.” I do not agree with this part because we are already paying the carbon taxes. The fact is that American taxpayers are paying for the costs of climate change now. These costs don't hit us all at once but sporadically, in different places and at different times. They don't feel like a carbon tax, though they amount to one. Every time we use fossil fuels, we increase our tax burden, a burden that unfolds like a sequence of trap doors, just like climate change itself. Start with food: Farmers have always faced good years and bad years, but as bad years get more frequent, taxpayers pick up more and more of the tab. Crop insurance is now one of the nation's biggest and riskiest financial bulwarks against the effect of climate change on farmers, who are struggling to adapt as growing conditions shift beneath their feet. 

Rather pushing Congress to require strong action for the carbon pricing, we should bypass the pricing schemes and move to regulate emissions strictly and enact policies to phase out fossil fuels or anything that cause climate change.

Legalizing marijuana

It strikes me that in all the recent discussion over legalizing marijuana. Smoking marijuana offers any or all of the following positive effects: it will make you more relaxed, more thoughtful, and more creative. It will make all the good things in life a little bit better, and the bad things a little less bad. If someone suffer from disease or chronic pain, it will ease distress. If you are a loner, it will increase the pleasure of silence.

Sounds pretty good, right?

And yet, I am against legalizing marijuana. It is harmful to kids and adolescents, especially. Marijuana contributes to psychosis and schizophrenia, addiction for 1 in 6 kids who ever use it once, and it reduces IQ among those who started smoking before age 18.

According to data from the 2012 National Survey of American Attitudes on substance abuse, the survey found that 86% of American high school students said that some classmates drink, use drugs and smoke during the school day. Additionally, 44% of high school students knew a student who sold drugs at their school. Asked what drugs students sold on school grounds, 91% said marijuana, 24% said prescription drugs, 9% said cocaine and 7% said ecstasy.

In addition, the immediate effects of taking marijuana include rapid heartbeat, disorientation, and lack of physical coordination, often followed by depression. Some users suffer panic attacks or anxiety. But the problem does not even end there. 

According to scientific studies, the active ingredient in cannabis, THC, remains in the body for weeks or longer. It contains 50-70% more cancer-causing substances than tobacco smoke. One major research study reported that a single cannabis joint could cause as much damage to the lungs as up to five regular cigarettes smoked one after another. Just making marijuana legalize in United States would open us to a host of all of these negative side-effects.

Furthermore, legalizing marijuana in Amsterdam experiment has not worked out so well. Amsterdam is the most famous place across the world that has effectively legalized pot. It has even turned into a tourist destination for potheads. 

However, Amsterdam became the first city in the Netherlands to ban students from smoking marijuana at school. Think about why they would do that. Otherwise beautiful and historic city, it turns out that area spoils, dealers standing on every corner offering a hard drugs are depressing enough. We probably do not want this in our city. Policy makers in other countries have pointed to increases in petty crime and localized opposition as an argument against further legalization.

Different places will legalize in different ways; some may never legalize at all; some will make mistakes they later think better off. But those that legalize early may prove to have a lasting influence well beyond their borders, establishing norms that last for a long while. It behaves them to think through what needs regulating, and what does not, with care. Whether you smoke or not, you probably still have an opinion. It is sufficiently obvious that marijuana is a threat to our society morally and physically. Its use leads to the use of “harder” and more dangerous drugs, which pose an even greater threat to the public. I urge you to consider the deteriorating effect that marijuana has on individuals and their surroundings.

 

Incarceration vs. Treatment

My classmate Nicolette Loisel’s blog Democratic Debris, she posted the article about ‘drug offenders need rehabilitation, not punishment.’ I strongly agree with her the fact that treatments reduce the drug use. But i would like to comment on that treatment is the ONLY sane answer to drug offenses, because it cost a lot less money to treat abusers rather than place them in a jail.

The drug abusers do deserve the punishment, due to using drugs and intoxication can impair judgment, resulting in criminal behavior, poor anger management, and violent behavior. Sometimes drug users steal money or property to be able to buy drugs. Often they will commit crimes while “high” on drugs, and many drug users are sent to jail or prison. A 2004 survey by the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that about 70 percent of State and 64 percent of Federal prisoners regularly used drugs prior to incarceration. The study also showed that 1 in 4 violent offenders in State prisons committed their offenses under the influence of drugs. Most prisoners serving time for drug-related crimes were not arrested for simple possession. Among sentenced prisoners under State jurisdiction, 18 percent were sentenced for drug offences and only 6 percent incarcerated for drug possession alone. And Federal data show that the vast majority of Federal prisoners sentenced for drug offenses were incarcerated for drug trafficking. Jail or prison would be a better if they can help and support their treatment. 

Majority of American continue to view drug abuse as a serious problem – just as they did a decade ago. What’s changed, however, is the way that most Americans believe we should handle the crisis.

Health benefits for women - Free for all

The contraception should be provided free of charge as part of preventative medicine.
Nearly 99 percent of all women have relied on contraception at some point in their lives. And yet, more than half of all women between the ages of 18 and 34 have struggled to afford it. When birth control is free, it reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies, and drastically lower abortion rates. Some women cannot even afford contraception or don’t have the insurance. With all the greed in this world, a budget for free contraception is not only necessary because of rape, experimentation of sexuality and any other reasons to one’s benefit, but plausible to women and society.
According to Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, for one rape happens every two seconds in the United States, this means children are accidentally conceived every two seconds.

Birth control doesn’t simply reduce unwanted pregnancies. It also reduces abortions. In the New England Journal study, the mean abortion rate among participants was less than one-fourth the rate for sexually active 14- to 19-year-old women nationally. That’s a pretty massive difference. Some social conservatives don’t consider that argument relevant, because they think women can and should avoid pregnancy through other methods. To the rest of us, however, those numbers sure look like a powerful case for making birth control free.

Also, on July 3, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment announced that, thanks to a public-private partnership on contraception access, the state’s teen birth rate dropped by 40 percent and the teen abortion rate dropped by 35 percent in a four-year period.

Obamacare decided to follow the judgment of the nation’s leading medical experts and make sure that free preventative care includes access to free contraceptive care.

Now, as we move to implement this rule, however, we have been mindful that there is another principle at stake here – and that’s the principle of religious liberty, an inalienable right that is protected in our Constitution. Women finally have the choice to get something that was not available for them before. As a citizen and as a Christian, the government wants to cherish this rights. Some of religion have a religious objection to directly providing insurance that covers contraceptive services for their employees. So, government originally exempted all churches from this requirement. Religious employer health plans can provide contraceptive coverage through a third party.

Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventative care that includes contraceptive services – no matter where they work. But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company will be require to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge.

Whether you are a teacher, or a small businesswoman, or a nurse, or a janitor, no woman’s health should depend on who she is or where she works or how much money she makes. Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health. This basic principle is already the law in 28 states across the country.

Gender does not matter

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016, the AMERICAblog published an article titled ‘Why Hillary’s nomination is a historic advance for women’. The author, John Aravosis, is saying women in positions of power are still asked how they balance family and career, whereas nobody would even conceive of asking the same question of men in the same position. The young women who think they are fully empowered and fully equal – John was disagree with them because they don’t have many role model in business and still the fact that women are not earning what men is earning in the workplace. I liked the author was saying that the next generations of young women were told they were equal in every way and came to believe it.

 According to his article, John says, “I didn’t grow up female, but I did grow up gay”. However, most importantly what he really emphasizing was Hillary is a woman and based on that fact she would understand the need to have more people of color, so we should support and vote for her. He has weak evidences why Hillary’s nomination would be the historic advance for women. His credibility of the article is not clear, which equate being a gay male to being a female. I am not offending him or anything. I respect his opinion. But, it promotes the negative stereotype that gay men are effeminate and think and act like women.

And he is embarrassed about that America has never had a female leader. Hillary has been untrustworthy to Americans. For instance, this time about her support for $15 per hour minimum wage in New York. However, on November during her debate, her speaking specifically to supporting only $12 per hour. Hillary Clinton proves yet again, she cannot be trusted, her positions on important issues swing wildly from one month to the next, and she doesn’t seem to remember what her positions are when claiming issues. After hearing about this issue, I, myself, who don’t know much about the politics, was doubting about Hillary being a president. That is why we should carefully concern about voting for the president, not based on the gender whether he or she, or expectations that she would do it someday. So there is no reason to be embarrassed about that America has never had a female leader yet. If we have and want the leader who can make the America great again, it doesn’t matter whether the leader is he or she.

Religion strikes again

On Sunday, June 12, 2016, the Dallas Morning News published an article titled Huma Munir: Don’t let anger, fear divide us in fight againstterrorism. Fifty people are dead and at least 50 injured in the deadliest shooting in American history after a gunman opened fire and took hostages overnight indisder the gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism. The shooter, Omar Marteen, called 911 before the attack and confessed his allegiance to ISIS. However, officials said that despite his confession, there was no evidence to support that he had been trained or instructed by the terror group or that he even had any direct connection to ISIS.

The author, Huma Munir, intended to Orlando massacre is not the work of all Muslims or Afghans. As not all Muslims are killers, she wanted to overcome and break the stereotypes and to reject suspicion and derision of one another. As she is representing one of the Muslim society, she honestly expressed her feeling about Muslim is hijacking her faith due to incident of Orlando, however, she is not going to become suspicious of other Muslims.

Even though I have a better understanding of not discriminating racial by stereotypes, some way or the other her perceptions have to see little bit more of reality of the world regarding with Muslims that most of the causes of terrorism are by them. On March 29, 2016, one of the Muslim scholars was invited to speak at Islamic Center. During his sermon, he considered homosexuals have to get rid of in their community and there is nothing to be embarrassed about this. Towards the homosexuals, he announced that their ‘death is the sentence’. I think it represents one particularly harsh Islamic perspective on gays have some connections gay and lesbian bars and clubs have been targeted consistently by those who harbor hate toward LGBT community. Why does Islam have a global terrorism problems today? This seems to be a very persistent, pervasive and uniquely Islamic problem spreading to the rest of the world. Politics could play a big role in it; however that does not explains why terrorism is such a Muslim sourced problem. Hope some of the Muslim people who believe in justice and peace have the correct teachings of them.