Increase troop not a solution

Increase troop not the solution!

The U.S. president Barack H Obama decided to increase U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Because he blamed Bush government for treating the Iraq war as the center of gravity of the counterattack to terrorist and neglected the location where the 911 attack originated.

He said: “The actual place to fight terrorist should be Afghanistan. That is why the harder we fight the more terrorist we produced! The important objective of the United States is to defeat and eliminate Osama Bin Laden and his bases of criminals of 911 to completely eliminate the threat of U.S. internal security.

But only 34% of American supported his decision. 44% of Afghanistan’s people think that they should reduce foreign troops in their countries. The United Nation and Afghanistan government also indicated that the Afghanistan people are not happy with American military action in their country, because many civilians were casualties of the military operation. In this circumstance, it is hard to achieve the objective by military operation even after the increase of troops.

Fortunately, the president has foresight and emphasizes that “the future war strategy in Afghanistan can’t depend only on the increase of troops".

The Afghanistan questions can’t be solved by military action alone and must be combined with political, economic and diplomatic solutions in order to achieve clear and real objective for American in Afghanistan and surrounding territories.

The U.S. government has spent a few hundred billions and sacrificed a few thousands lives in Iraq war to eliminate Saddam Hussein. However, American may have to pay the same cost to defeat and eliminate Osama Bin Laden and his bases. But there are 900 million Muslims in the world; some of them may want revenge for their “heros”. In such as case, the U.S. internal security threat is still unresolved.

Therefore the best way for American to avoid the same attack as 911 is to find a way to befriend the Muslim world. In view of this, President Obama should consider making a great change to his policy by forgiving those responsible for the 911 tragedy and to let bygone be bygone! And forgive Osama Bin Laden to prove that American does not want to be the enemy of Muslim. As the Chinese proverb said “better to reduce number of enemies than creating more enemies.” China could be in a right position to convince the Muslims to change their hatred toward Americans and seek common ground while resolving differences.... making the world a more peaceful place.

增兵不是办法！

美国奥巴马总统决定增兵阿富汗，因为他认为布什政府将伊拉克作为反恐重心，而忽略了9.11事件的策源地，真正的反恐主战场是阿富汗，这是“越反越恐”的关键所在。美国应把打击和消灭9.11事件的罪魁祸首乌萨马·本·拉登和他的基地组织作为主要反恐任务。以便解决对美国本土安全的威胁。
但（华盛顿邮报）所做的民意调查显示！只有34%的美国人支持增兵计划。美国和英国的广播公司的民调，44%的阿富汗人认为应当减少外国驻军，只有18%的人同意外国增兵。联合国和阿富汗政府都指出，阿富汗民众对外国驻军不满，因为战争造成不少平民伤亡。在这种情况下，美国增兵阿富汗的计划成功机率不高，难以达到目的。
幸好，奥巴马总统强调“不能用增兵来预设美军未来在阿富汗的战略基地”，他指出“光靠军事手段不能解决阿富汗问题，只有综合运用军事、政治、经济和外交等手段多管齐下，美国才能在阿富汗及周边取得明确和可实现的目标”。
美国在伊拉克花了几千亿美元，牺牲了几千条性命才消灭了萨达姆，在阿富汗如再打下去，可能要付出同样的代价才能达到目的。但就算把乌萨马·本·拉登活捉或打死，和铲除了他的基地组织，全世界9亿穆斯林中难免仍有存心要为乌萨马·本·拉登报仇的人，对美国安全的威胁，仍旧不能完全解除！
因此，为避免9.11事件的重演，美国应该以和为贵，想办法与穆斯林世界取得和解。奥巴马总统也许应该在政策上做一个重大的改变，主动跨出第一步：宣布对9.11造事者给与宽恕，以行动证明美国不是穆斯林的敌人，中国谚语说：“冤家宜解不宜结”。同时，利用中国对穆斯林国家的良好关系协助劝说各造，为世界和平放弃一切恩怨，求同存异，友好相处。

Don't Spoil Your Trip

The U.S. State Secretary Mrs. Hillary Clinton said before her departure to visit Asia (including China) “The positive co-operation between U.S. and China is very important for the benefit of both countries, as well as important to the peace, progress and prosperous of Asia-Pacific Region and even the world.”

But on the other hand, she gave answer to the reporter that “The U.S. government will continue to sell defensive arms to Taiwan” according to the Taiwan relations act.

Her straight- forward speaking could be habits of most Americans leader. But since she wanted to exercise her “smart power” policy, then she should avoid saying something that could embarrass the Chinese counterpart at such important moment!

One must understand how to give face to one's host especially when you need help or co-operation.

不要影响亚洲之行！

美国国务卿希拉里•克林顿起程访问亚洲四国之前（包括中国）在亚洲协会纽约总部发表演讲时说：“美国将继续致力于与中国发展积极的合作关系；两国将从对方的成功中受益；同时有助于对方的发展。这对亚太地区乃至全球和平进步与繁荣至关重要。”

但在旅途中回答记者询问时说“美国仍将继续销售防卫性武器给台湾，根据台湾关系法，这可能是大部分美国领导人爽直说话的习惯。但希拉里国务卿既然要实行“理性”的外交政策，就不应该在如此重要的时刻说出可能使中国领导人不乐意听的话。

聪明的政治家应该懂得给主人讲些乐意听的话，尤其当你要得人家的帮助和合作的时刻。否则可能造成事倍功半，影响亚洲之行！

The Sensible Defense Secretary

The new president of United State, President Obama’s decision to retain Defense Secretary Robert Gates of Bush administration was surprising to many outsiders since Obama’s new policy is against Iraq War. Why was the man responsible for the Iraq War retained?

However, we may now understand the reasons after reading the frank and sensible statement by Robert Gates as follows:

“The United States defense secretary Robert Gates recently remarked that when saddled with the financial crisis, the Iraq war and war in Afghanistan, the arms procurement model needs to be revolutionized to reduce costs. He clearly stated that at present, the biggest military challenge to the United States comes from the war in Afghanistan.

Gates was attending the hearing of the senate armed services committee and this is the first time he openly expounded on US military strategy since retaining his position as Defense Secretary. According to him, the US military cannot “purchase everything” at this stage with the deteriorated economy and the enormous cost of two wars,.

Gates acknowledged that there are many problems in the existing procurement model. For example, the lack of procurement experts, the incessant dispute among interested parties and the budgetary instability led to “a number of expensive weapons procurement projects” that have “unacceptable problems” in terms of cost and research and development. In his view, the US joint combat capability of the various arms has progressively improved. However, the equipment procurement projects are “fragmented wars” and appear duplicated and wasteful.

His position is in line with President Obama’s revised policy. Cutting military spending and fixing US domestic finance and economy are appropriate policies of United States.

The United States’ defense budget is the highest in the world. In 2007 military spending was 546.8 billion US dollars, accounting for more than 40 percent of global military spending. This could be the reason most American are in debt! In fact, if the United States only takes care of its national defense and does not worry about other countries’ security, all Americans could still be living a comfortable and safe life.

理智的国防部长

美国新总统奥巴马让布什政府末任国防部长盖茨留任，使很多外人觉得奇怪，奥巴马总统是反对伊拉克战争的，为什么要把负责伊拉克战争的国防部长留任呢？
直到最近读了盖茨国防部长下列的谈话才知道奥巴马要把盖茨留任的原因：
“美国国防部长罗伯特盖·茨近日说：受到金融危机、伊拉克战争和阿富汗战争拖累，武器采购模式亟待革新，以节省开支。他明确提出，现阶段，美国最大的军事挑战来自阿富汗战争。
盖茨当天在参议院军事委员会出席听证会，这是他留任以来首次公开阐述美方军事战略。按照他的说法，现阶段，经济形势恶化，两场战争耗费巨大，美军不能随心所欲地“采购一切”。
盖茨承认，现有采购模式存在诸多问题，如缺乏采购专家、各方面利益争执不断、预算不稳定，导致“一些昂贵的武器采购项目”在成本、研发等方面出现“令人无法接受的问题”。在他看来，美军各兵种联合作战能力日益提高，但装备采购“各自为战”，出现重复、浪费。”
他的主张符合奥巴马总统要改变美国政策的立场，节省军事开销拼好国内金融经济是美国正确的新政策。
美国国防预算高居世界首位，2007年军费开支5468亿美元，占全球军费开支40%以上，这可能就是造成大多数美国人负债的原因，美国如果只管好自己的国防，不要担心他国的安全，所有美国人，将可以安全地过着舒适的生活。

SMART POWER

HOW to be a "SMART POWER"

If the US state secretary Mrs. Hillary "Smart Power" policy is meant to retain US as a super power country, US must be smart enough.

In view of this, I would like to suggest the followings "Smart" policies for the US leaders to consider:

1. Do not interfere with other countries internal affairs in order to avoid too many people being unhappy with America.

2. UseUnited Nations or join hand with leading country in differenct territory to solve the regional issues intsead of doing it alone.

For example in Asia, China could help US to solve problems with North Korea, Pakistan and
Afghanistan as well as all the Muslim countries because her good relationship with these
countries.

The experience of China to handle the more than 30 millions of internal Muslims to live with non-Muslim peacefullys could help America improve relationship with Muslim countries. In return America should help China to solve the Taiwan problems.

如何做聪明强国

如果美国新政府要以“聪明手段”(“smart power”)继续成为超强国家，那下列几点建议也许值得美国领导人的参考：

1. 不要干涉别国的内政，以免太多人不喜欢美国。
2. 利用联合国和个别地区的领导国家合作，共同解决每个地区的难题，代替单边主义政策。
3. 在亚洲，只有中国才是美国的最好合作伙伴，因为中国和北朝、巴基斯坦、阿富汗及所有回教国家都有很好的关系。
中国能使国内超过3千万的回族人民和其他民族和平相处，足以证明中国有能力可以使其他回教国家和美国改善关系。