here's life

I was listening to a recording of “This American Life” a radio show that usually shows up on NPR. In the second Act, a guy in advertising tells about an ad campaign he worked on, with the State Department, trying to sell Americanism to the Muslim world. PR for democracy and freedom. The story is pretty funny, but depressing as well. From their focus groups, trying to determine what would work, a recurring theme was that Muslims can’t be free or at peace, because of the Jews. The Jews have Jerusalem, which the Muslims need. According to this radio show, until Islams control Medina, Mecca and Jerusalem, there won’t be peace.
Of course, if there was no Jerusalem, then there wouldn’t be any fighting over it. But our current foreign policy does not include turning the Middle East into a glass parking lot. It does include giving aid, arms and aid to buy our arms. And I hear that it is common for us to help both sides. That way, everybody is happy, killing each other, in a careful balance determined by the US government, taxpayers, and defense contractors. As a taxpayer, this doesn’t seem like a good use of the money I could use to, say, buy more pipe fittings (I’ve been doing that a lot lately). And it doesn’t look like it’s really helping either. If it’s not the Jews and Arabs, it’s Eritrea and Somalia, Or the Turks and the Kurds. The North Koreans and the South Koreans. The Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. The Serbs and Croatians. We can continue to send men and money and missles over to try and keep people from killing each other. People who have been trying to kill each other for centuries, and don’t plan on stopping. Or, we could break up the fight. Send them to their rooms.
Here’s the plan: if there is a chronic war going on, we take one side, and send them to a space colony, built on the Moon, Mars or Australia. Which side? Well I’d leave the side that is less likely to turn on us. With their rivals gone, they’ll have more free time, and excess weapons. So, keep the side that will turn to more useful pursuits. But what gives us the right to arbitrate between two people groups, and send one to exile, away from their homeland? On the other hand, is that worse than giving guns to the other side? Besides, what if you had the choice: stay in your war torn homeland, probably a desert, and covered with unexploded ordinance…or, get to start over in a state-of-the-art housing facility, that produces everything you need, with a whole new planet to spread out on? Then there is the question of whether we could afford it—isn’t it expensive to build rockets? Yes, but war ain’t cheap either, and if we didn’t have to finance it in so many countries, we could devote more money to some new technologies that make space travel much cheaper. Some people are already working on it—these weekend spaceenthusiasts are making good progress with balloons. And I have a feeling, that once we started taking drastic measures like exporting a nation, the others would be encouraged to find ways to get along while they have a chance. Oh, and it would give space travel a purpose—right now, it’s a nifty idea, but there aren’t many practical reasons to waste huge amounts of effort to leave our quite livable sphere. But, if it could stop a war, that’s a financial impetus. I’m sure there is a place on Mars that looks just like Jerusalem