Al-Qaeda's Demise

Al-Qaeda’s Demise

In “How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns,” Audrey Cronin challenges us by suggesting that, “once we concentrate on how terrorism ends, forging a successful strategy for its defeat can begin. “  Cronin looks at a range of different case studies of different terrorist groups across history, around the globe and throughout the ideological spectrum to explore the ways in which States have responded to terrorism and how terrorist groups have traditionally come to an end.  Cronin identifies examples of how Decapitation, Negotiations, Success, Failure, Repression and Reorientation have all brought about the end of various terrorist groups ranging from the IRA in Ireland to the Shinning Path in Peru.  She then shifts to an exploration of Al-Qaeda and how it differs and she believes it will be defeated.   Cronin argues that, “Al-Qaeda will end when the West removes itself from the heart of this fight, shores up international norms against terrorism, undermines al-Qaeda’s ties with its followers, and effectively turns its own abundant missteps against it,” while suggesting that, “Terrorist Campaigns end when they are denied leadership, when negotiations redirect energies, when they implode, when they are repressed, when they descend to selfish ends, or when they transmogrify into the strategic mainstream.” America’s strategy to defeat Al-Qaeda must apply the lessons of history to Al-Qaeda’s unique structure.   Cronin, along with other scholars on Al-Qaeda such as Helfstein and Wright identify Al-Qaeda as being composed of a core, periphery and broader social movement.  These three layers of Al-Qaeda align with the traditional functions of terror; to provoke, compel and mobilize.  While Cronin is correct in identifying how to demobilize the larger movement Al-Qaeda attempts to lead, she falls short in her strategy to deal with the core and periphery.  America will defeat Al-Qaeda by decapitating its core, repressing its periphery and marginalizing the broader movement. 

   America’s strategy to deal with the operational core of Al-Qaeda is to decapitate it.  Al-Qaeda’s core, originally composed of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, have been immensely successful terrorists, succeeding in carrying out 50% of their planned attacks with an average death toll of 452 people.   Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri did not gain the influence they have undoubtedly exerted by being idiots.  They had a coherent strategy that has worked in the same way the martial art of judo uses an opponent’s strength or momentum against them.  Bin Laden intelligently engaged his “far enemy,” America, and provoked it to wipe out his “near enemies” (the regimes of Saddam, Ben Ali, Gaddafi, Mubarak, Saleh and Assad) in an effort to allow for America to crush the authoritative nation states and then capitalize on the chaos of the nation-state’s collapse, using neocolonial propaganda to galvanize insurgencies to drive out the west, allowing for Al-Qaeda to move in and use the primitive legal code of Sharia to restore a semblance of order and religious purity to appeal to the ignorance of war-torn, impoverished and inadequately educated populaces that feel exploited by international corporations and left behind by the international Westphalia system.  With previous terrorist groups we have seen decapitation succeed in creating infighting, causing a loss of operational control and intimidating many to exit.  If Bin Laden were still alive and allowed traditional operational control of the entirety of Al-Qaeda’s larger social base the conditions in North Africa and Syria would be alarming.   The risks persist, but with Osama Bin Laden dead and Al-Qaeda’s core leadership largely decapitated and their successors under constant assault, it has been rendered incapable of maintaining operational control, instead encouraging its periphery of allied groups to carry out attacks as was the case with Ansar Al-Sharia brigade during the overtly politicized Benghazi attacks.  The turmoil of decapitation, clash of egos and conflicts of ambition without the unifying leadership of Bin Laden has affected the operational capacity of Al-Qaeda in ways the intelligence community is yet to fully grasp.  The symbolic elements and quality targets of the core prior to the Afghanistan invasion rallied popular support.  As Iraqi proxies waged attacks the choice in targeting turned the populace against Al-Qaeda, showing the effectiveness of decapitation.  While decapitation alone cannot defeat Al-Qaeda, decapitation of its core will eventually lead to its demise in the same way that a snake continues to slither for sometime after its head has been removed.   While the snake’s death was not immediate, the death stroke was still the removal of its head.  Bin Laden’s death may still prove to be the defining moment in Al-Qaeda’s demise, however with Ayman al-Zawahiri still alive, the task of decapitating Al-Qaeda’s core remains incomplete.  Drone strikes, as in the example of Anwar al-Awlaki’s death, are valuable tools of decapitation, however, are unlikely to be a panacea as highly trained capture and kill teams along with better spy cells unhindered by international legal restraints and immediate public criticism will be at times, necessary.  I want to emphasize, that torture is unacceptable in dealing even with Al-Qaeda, that there are far more effective means of interrogation that garner far better intelligence. 

   Dealing with Al-Qaeda’s periphery demands a finessed repression dependant on international collaboration, particularly in the areas of intelligence and military, but also in legal matters and policing.   Tough diplomacy combining generous incentives and implied threats encourage cooperation amongst local governments in aggressively repressing authentic terrorist groups aligned with Al-Qaeda.  There is a necessary finesse in taking the time to really understand who is who and the differences between various groups directly linked to Al-Qaeda or related by association with Islamist armed asymmetrical warfare, because too often we have seen Middle East and North African autocrats label their internal enemies as Al-Qaeda in an effort to justify gross human rights violations; and even, at times, the American military and politicians label groups as Al-Qaeda for the sake of simplification, connotation or to garner popular support for military action, when they may only be Islamists or ethnic based movements expressing their frustrations with inadequate governance in the limited protest rhetoric available in the poor and uneducated portions of the Muslim world.  We have seen elements of the intelligence community encourage human rights violations with black sight extraordinary renditions and the turning of a blind eye to the less legitimate applications of torture when allied Governments have used them to crush rebellions threatening American strategic interests.   At times, unfortunately, America must balance its fervent support for democracy, market liberalization, human freedom and Universalist ideals with realist national interests.  At times, cooperating strongmen are necessary allies for America.  This was the case with Stalin during World War II, and is the case in the Middle East today with Abdullah in Saudi Arabia.  America can effectively repress the periphery of Al-Qaeda by fostering strong relations with Middle East governments, providing training for their security apparatus and helping stabilize vulnerable regimes cooperating in the repression of Al-Qaeda’s periphery.  This is the case in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and Oman, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and on good days, Pakistan, but also African countries like Morocco, Algeria and Nigeria.  This is not a call to gross oppression, verifiable intelligence and some form of legal framework must be integrated into strategic tactics to allow for precision targeting and the avoidance of unnecessary human rights violations or the general oppression of local civilian populaces.  In areas where the governments are incapable of repression, America needs to proactively use the lethal combination of its drones, satellites and precision bombing with special forces in the marines, navy and army along with improved classic intelligence capabilities running spy rings and penetrating Al-Qaeda and its affiliated brigades, militias and cells.   Repression is an important component of pre-empting future attacks, suffocating their allure from future recruits and mitigating their capacity to influence events.  With periphery group attacks carrying a 67% success rate and average death toll approaching 173 people per attack, it is clear that we are not doing a sufficient job in this repression.  The difficulty is to find a way to engage in targeted repression without creating a backlash from excessively repressed populaces who are provided a narrative that may play into the hands of Al-Qaeda and other extremists. It circles back to improving traditional CIA/MI6 style intelligence operations and communicating that intelligence to the appropriate military units to carry out attacks by way of sky or ground forces to illustrate that allegiance to Al-Qaeda, whether direct by way of training or financing, or indirect by affiliation and inspiration, is a death sentence. 

    Defeating the larger social movement Al-Qaeda has had a role in mobilizing depends on marginalizing Al-Qaeda as a voice for the Islamist movements ripping across the Middle East.   The Muslim brotherhood was too well mobilized and organized to be repressed indefinitely, but in order to go mainstream it had to refine its message and separate itself from the extremism of Al-Qaeda.  A sizeable bass of potential recruits for Al-Qaeda, essentially disgruntled and dissatisfied Muslim youths inhabiting the kleptocratic regimes of the Arab world, have found alternative social movements whose embrace of democracy, regard for women’s rights and focus on social justice make them more viable and popular, marginalizing the extremists.   America has a role in this, working with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Islamists in Tunisia, and the diverse spectrum of groups active in Syria and Libya to divert frustration away from Al-Qaeda and towards the removal of mutual enemies, the political process and economic activities.  This is a developing art that the Obama Administration seems quite adept at, and politically motivated criticisms are a desperate attempt to distract for either political gain or antiquated partisan paradigms and stereotyping because despite occasional operational failures, the new grand strategy is working.   The situation is tenuous and America must be delicate in its usage of force and diplomacy because the volatility of revolution is never a nice and neat process, however, progress is being made.   America has to protect its national interests, and while Israel may have preferred the security of the devils they knew, America’s geopolitical interests in terms of defeating Al-Qaeda, pushing back Russia and preventing Iran from emerging as the dominant regional force have worked thus far.  The violence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, waged against Muslims in an effort to provoke sectarian violence back fired, causing both sides to get fed up with Al-Qaeda and turn on it, this effect can be magnified by strategic communications across the middle east.  If America and our friends across the Muslim world are wise in exposing Al-Qaeda’s tactics and the grotesque violence perpetrated on Muslims, while questioning the validity of its end game and continuing to address some of the more legitimate grievances Al-Qaeda has traditionally tapped into for recruitment, the social movement behind Al-Qaeda can move beyond Al-Qaeda, marginalize and sideline Al-Qaeda, while evolving to a tolerable form, respectful of minorities and women, embracing democracy and at peace with America.

There are no negotiations with Al-Qaeda aside from limited amnesty for unconditional surrender and public renunciation.   As America draws down its troop presence, especially if it can capture Mullah Omar and break up the Haqqanni network and improve cooperation with elements of ISI that have used the Taliban as a proxy, I predict the surviving remnants of the Taliban will reorient themselves towards poppy cultivation and function as a classic narco-trafficing group as we saw with the FARC in Columbia, and Abu Sayyaf in the Philipines.    As America draws down its troop presence in the Middle East, Palestine solidifies its nationhood and the young democracies of the Arab world develop an Islamic brand of representative governance and market economics, former Al-Qaeda sympathizers across North Africa, Syria and the greater Middle East will largely be absorbed into the political process and market place causing Al-Qaeda to largely dissipate and disintegrate into irrelevance.     As with Irgun in Israel and the ANC in South Africa successes can end terrorism and while Al-Qaeda will not be in the 5% of terrorist groups that succeed, some historically aligned groups like Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood may succeed, and by consequence help end the violence of Al-Qaeda as well.  When international frameworks support the direction of terrorists they historically have had a stronger chance of success.  The votes in the UN to elevate the status of Palestine along with international angst against a unilateral neocolonialism and extended, extensive American Military presence in the Middle East, along with overdue departures for corrupt ruling dictators in the Islamic world will provide limited success in the completion of Osama Bin Laden’s early goals, but it will not be Al-Qaeda who gets to take the credit, ironically it will largely be the United States, its allies and the groups that have aligned themselves with us.  The cause for caution lives in the uncertainty of the Middle East’s instability, the rapid transformations, the vulnerabilities of democracy and the international trend of expanding regional trading and political blocs that could under foreseeable circumstances lead to a pan-Islamic state.  Its for this reason, America must keep a hand in managing the leaders of Islam, promoting moderate voices, prop up and strengthen relations with Arab Peninsula allies while continuing to engage with the Mediterranean Muslim States in constructive multinational venues, collaborate on providing shared humanitarian interests in an effort to end the poverty, oppression, desperation and ignorance that breeds terrorism, insurgencies and for that matter, war. Al-Qaeda member’s unwillingness to engage in any type of political process has marginalized them at a time when the Arab majority has rallied to the cries of democracy, freedom and peace.  The faith of the people has strayed from the extremist ideology of Al-Qaeda, putting it out of touch and at odds with an Arab street that has found modernized Islamic voices that offer a vision beyond just wanton destruction.
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Rick Santorum and his would be war on Satan, Condoms and College Education will destroy America.

“Rick Santorum and his would be war on Satan, Condoms and College Education will destroy America. “

   There is no single bigger threat to our Nation as we know it than Rick Santorum.  A senator hailing from Pennsylvania who lost his last senatorial race by 22% points he has managed to raise a shocking challenge for the Republican ticket by appealing to evangelical right wing conservatives hesitant to back a big money Mormon.   He has tried to rally popularity from his base by baselessly attacking Barack Obama and fundamental notions of our modern nation such as the separation between Church and State.  From Santorum’s statements that “Satan is attacking America’s great institutions,” that Barack Obama has “some phony theology, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology,” and that colleges are “indoctrination mills, absolutely…that…is a harm to our country” and “I don’t believe in an America where the separation between Church and State is absolute” we see the very real threat Rick Santorum poses to this Great Nation and the from of Republicanism envisioned by George Washington and our founding fathers.

      If God or Jesus could say one thing to Rick Santorum I would imagine it being, “First and foremost, Rick, don’t you dare dirty either my Church or our God by involving them in Politics.  Secondly, don’t you dare undermine my Nation by forcing your narrow-minded religion and worldview upon it.”  At least, that was the argument of my theology teacher at the Catholic high school from which I graduated. The reason being, that when the Catholic Church was the government we saw indulgences sold like government bonds and inquisitions carried out like terrorist renditions causing a pollution of our faith and a corruption of the clergy members charged with representing it.  This is an obvious lesson when you study the history of Christendom and a lesson that rang loud and clear to our enlightened founding fathers. 

       We can listen to Rick Santorum or we can listen to a man of deep religious conviction who helped found our nation.  Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in accordance with the Dansbury Baptists he was addressing that “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies soley between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of Government reach actions only, and not opinion, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. “  While any faithful Christian carries their faith with them everywhere, we have to leave behind our official religion at times of Governance and in public matters because our nation includes a wide range of religious views who all have equal rights under our nation’s constitution, law and our supreme courts interpretation of them.   This is why America works and so many Middle Eastern nations struggle, because we understand the importance of religious tolerance.  We emphasize our shared faith in a higher power while exercising our patriotic duties that begin with a respect for our popularly elected President charged with executing the laws of the democratic majority so long as they do not overstep the bounds of the US Constitution and its protections of individuals.  Rick Santorum clearly misses this, perhaps in some deluded self-aggrandizement of self where he is some heroic servant of God saving us from secular rule.  When I hear him speak of such things I feel as though I am hearing an English translation of some Al-Qaeda or Taliban intercept.   Rick needs to understand that there is a wall between Church and State and I would recommend that perhaps he should stay on the other side of the wall and go get a job as a preacher.

   I understand your struggle with education, Rick Santorum, because anyone with a college education and an IQ smarter than an elephant will see right threw his phony pretence of “faith, family and freedom.”  The only one involved in any level of indoctrination is Rick Santorum.  You see in college, American citizens are provided a framework to think critically and encouraged to challenge the opinions and norms of our societies, our professors, our political leaders and business elites.  There is a scientific process utilized by even the Social Sciences or dare I say liberal arts, which rigorously establishes fact, tests hypothesizes and then formulates larger theories or conclusions based on their findings which are then vetted by a process of criticism by America’s greatest minds.   Maybe his home schooling and one book philosophy from the bible were not enough to prepare him for college and the defeats he faced in the class room damaged his self-esteem and cause him to attack America’s finest assets today.  Such speculation is petty, but what is important is that we understand the value of education.  While our health system, wealth disparity and crime rates pale in comparison to other western nations, our military, economy and higher-education system remain the best in the world.  To keep our economic edge we need to maintain the innovation edge, which is fully dependant on the continued dominance of our universities and easy access to them for the brilliant young minds who desire to fill them.  Understand, what Romney and Santorum both miss, is that while the “liberal arts (history, political science, social science, humanities, literature etc.)” may not turn us into the obedient knob turners and order takers, they certainly do teach us to be great citizens and help us to find scientific approaches to addressing the social ills our nation faces.  A nation of great citizens is something that democracy demands and that our governing corporate plutocracy loathes.    Christianity is something the corporate plutocracy abuses to control our thoughts and guilt trip us into being obedient little sheep.   Liberal arts and the social sciences make us better Christians because they force us to look outside of ourselves, to see and experience things from the perspective of others and through the lens of history so that we can better apply the Golden Rule both as individuals with respect for our fellow citizens and in the policies we support. 

     Rick Santorum makes a baseless personal attack on the religion of Barack Obama, claiming that his policies are not based on the bible and that that he holds some “phony theology, not a theology based on the bible.”  Well, as I separate the subjects of theology (the logic of God) and politics as our nation’s founding fathers did, I have some comments on this.  I myself am an Episcopalian, and since taking the office of President, Barack Obama has frequented Episcopalian services regularly I will claim him as our own and explain the basic differences between my faith, Catholicism and traditional Protestantism.   Protestantism developed as a protest to the corruption of the Catholic Church and so to rid itself of that corruption it rejected Catholic tradition using scripture as the sole tenant of its proponents’ faith.  Catholicism holds reverence for scripture, but also its rich tradition that began with Peter becoming the first Pope.   Episcopalians share the first two tenants of faith but also have a third tenant of their faith, human reason.  We believe that God has endowed us with a gift to be able to establish truth threw human reason and logic.  We are free to use this logic to study both books and the universe to establish our notions of right and wrong, fact and fiction.  The problem with the Bible is that it says strikingly little about either governance or economics.   Does Rick Santorum intend to restore the political oppression of King Herod and the religious oppression of the Pharisees and Sadducees?  Or maybe he wishes to re-establish the economic system of the early Christian church where its members gave 100% of their earnings to the Church which where then doled out by Paul according to the early members’ needs?   The early church’s organization sounds slightly similar to different C-word ism than Christianity.  Understand, that unlike the Koran, the bible says strikingly little about governance, rather gives us a code as to how we should treat one another, as a community of neighbors with differing views and opinions.

     

         In college we learn to look at the entirety of Western Civilization from Ancient Greece to modern America to explore the multitude of different political and economic models utilized to find which works best.  We also compare our political economic system to other nations around the world to see where we can improve and where we have advantages.   This may not be a theology of the bible, but then it is not the president’s job to be a theologian.  We should expect our president to have a conscious recognition that factually the Bible is a neatly selected cannon of stories that tells the historical relationship of the Semetic people with their God from about 1800bc to the immediate years following the death of Jesus in 4bc.  Is it right for someone charged with the duties of president to blindly dismiss the 2016 years since the ascension of Christ, the over 14 billions years of natural history before then, and the 196,932,408 square miles of Earth outside of Israel as we determine what is right for America.  We must also look to “our” past to determine how our nation must be governed in the future and amongst rational intelligent people this past includes more than just the bible, but also define this vast collection of our books and knowledge ranging from history, politics, philosophy, religion, science, medicine, physics to governance.

        The best estimates suggest that 31-35 million human beings are currently living with Aids, yet Rick Santorum attacks condoms as somehow interfering with marriage.  I have a beautiful wife and I challenge the world to find a couple more deeply in love than us.  We have a healthy sex life which is an important part of expressing our love.  We also usually use condoms because my wife has hormonal problems when taking birth control.  We unfortunately are not financially prepared to have a child as she pursues her degree in bilingual education and I myself a masters in homeland security and Phd in Political Science.   The reality is that humans have a genetic instinct to breed, and the actual rates of sexual intercourse are higher than any Rick Santorum would care to admit, with each unprotected sexual encounters carrying the risk of transmitting Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases which can be mitigated almost completely by the usage of a condom.   The statements of Rick Santorum ignore these realities and highlight the fatalist flaw of Rick Santorum and his breed of Conservative thinking.  On the one hand, he claims Christianity is the end all be all of his existence, yet on the other hand he completely fails to take an actual account of the neighbor’s condition he is charged by Christian duty to love.   Rick preaches conformity while ignoring the simple and proven public policies that effectively “do unto others what we would have done unto us.” 

 

    Rick Santorum was right about one thing, “American institutions are under attack.”  Not by Satan as Rick Santorum so boldly prophesized, but by Rick Santorum himself.  He attacks the institution of President, our long established constitutionally defined norms of separation between church and state, our first rate university system, the sanctity of marriage and the wisest of medical advice.  I cannot imagine a Rick Santorum presidency and am confident that while he may win conservative votes in a primary he has no chance of winning a popular election.   Before anyone votes for Rick Santorum I hope you imagine four years of his sermons on your sexual behavior, his faith, his family and how this distortion of freedom would not only undermine our American way of life but also doom us all to poverty.   As the war on terror finishes, do we really need or want a war on Satan, condoms, education and the division between church and state as the focal point of our next four years?  We have spent the last 11 years fighting religious extremism abroad and have made huge advances and should stand together to reject religious extremism in our own governance.   As much respect as I have for all my teachers and the high quality education I received, I remember feeling that their was such an intense level of indoctrination at both my Episcopalian elementary school and the Catholic high school when it came to religion and was certain that certain people simply used God as a means of control and to enforce obedience, not as a genuine faith or belief structure.  I also remember walking back to my dorms from a History 4a (western civilization), with the sun setting in Santa Barbara’s sun and finally truly believing in God and knowing with certainty that this is how things are meant to be.

      God deliver us from Santorum.

This is an older piece I wrote during the primaries.   I'll have new work up soon, but have just started a new job and am incredibly busy.    www.kingtheo.com

A Bold Proposal from a Keynesian Economist for America's Future.

A Bold Proposal from a Keynesian Economist for America's Future.  

   With Obama observing that "the private sector is fine" and the private sector, or at least the Republican party making it very clear that "the private sector" isn't fine, I'd like to examine why its struggling before we immediately heed to their complaints about excessive regulations and growth hindering taxes that have become an exhausted talking point and obserdly hypocritical cry to a silent majority that is tired of the scape-goating and excuses. To be honest, we need to recognize that the single biggest economic issue our nation is facing currently is really more of a demographic issue. The reality is that the baby-boomers are getting old, retiring at a clip of ten thousand per day, and past the time period in their lives where wealth accumulation is at its highest. Without the experiences of the great depression they were overall, rather liberal with their money as households. They did not experience the great depression of 1930s, rather instead an era of unprecedentant economic dominance as America became supplier of the world with Japan, Germany and Europe flatened by World War II and a third world, that well, was still the third world. They spent recklessly, were spoiled by their lifestyles and taught to think of their houses as a bank account that grows just by living in it. With wealth in hand, they prioritized maximizing profit margins for corporations by pushing free trade programs making it easier for companies to outsource jobs and manufacturing, which also allowed for cheaper household items. They were fortunate and while they took that wealth for granted, they were rational in their management of it. They were also aggressive and daring in that management and while it paid massive dividends for long period of time it exposed them to vulnerabilities that came to a head in 2007.

    The Bush administration had no interest in sharing the legacy of the Hoover Administration and as they looked at foreclosure trends, home sales and the effect on our lending institutions they acted swiftly to prop up the lending system and prevent a prolonged economic retraction, or depression. The stimulus which was passeed by the Bush Administration is defended by both Obama and Romney. It undoubtedly succeeded at preventing a depression. It was less effective than expected, however, because the lenders largely failed to do what they were expected to do with the money. They were expected to lend it back out to the public to encourage consumption while reducing rates to free up household cash flow and keep loans performing. In part, the public was spooked by the crisis and hesitant to spend and borrow more. In part, the regulations that were passed were too stringent, making it difficult for many to access lending. The policy wasn't wrong, keynesian economic models are not wrong, the implementation of them were a problem. At the end of the day, when the stimulus program was passed, the legislation failed to mandate modifications and lending with numerous complaints about a multitude of issues. It took time, and the reaction of the far right is always an all or nothing approach which is out of touch with the needs of most Americans, the policies need to be fine tuned and adjusted, refunded and expanded but to dismiss keynesian models of economics outright is to doom Americans to intense unnecessary suffering. If you have millions of dollars in the bank, then I don't blame you for disliking keneysian economics. Inflation and spending causes labor prices to increase, your relative wealth to decrease and your influence to wane. This pressure forces those with money to invest or use their money as opposed to hold it, this pressure drives economic growth. In healthy capitalism the most efficient and effective capital managers will continue to accumulate more wealth, whether there is inflation or not and will be able to benefit from a more stable society where minimum living standards and human rights are guaranteed.  We all benefit because that capital produces more jobs, better products and higher tax revenues to pay for more services and better security.

    What we are looking at is a job-creating strategy that will drive economic growth while increasing median incomes.  The overall strategy is to put cash reserves held by banks and major corporations that total close to 4 trillion in action to create jobs for the US economy.  There is over two trillion dollars in three American bank’s hands.   If lent wisely we can create twenty trillion worth of investment, enough for 200 million, one hundred thousand dollar jobs.   Now obviously those borrowed funds would not all go to new salaries, we don’t need to create that many, but if the conditions on it were to reduce unemployment rates of able bodied and minded workers towards 0% than there would still be trillions left to invest in new infrastructure, worker benefits (mandatory health, life and dental) employee education (tuition reimbursement), new stores, new factories, new offices, Research & Development, new Equipment, new software, new communication and information technologies and anything else the captains of industry see as worth while.  This spending would jump start our economy without increasing government spending and the idea is that with America back up and running its ongoing competitive advantages and economic strength will allow it to push forward and never look back.

     The key is to get these banks lending and CEOs of major corporations hiring.  Since 2 trillion of these cash reserves are in three major banks, you simply go to the CEOs of these banks and the other top 500 US CEOs and politely have them swear an oath of allegiance to the US constitution and swear them in as Commerce Officers.   They are expected to subordinate to the president of the United States and in exchange are given access to ultra low interest rate loans and a corporate tax cut to 28% with some write off revisions and a tax holiday where funds oversees can be brought back into the United States at low tax rates earmarked to help create a federal infrastructure bank and education funding bank.  The CEOs will report to the commerce secretary on a rotating schedule with quarterly meetings from all top 500 CEOs and annual meetings for the next 2000 CEOs with the deputy commerce secretaries.  CEOS will report on growth strategies, worker relations, product development, new revenues, Profits and Losses, business plans, competition and management principals.  

   America is going to maximize energy production, respecting traditional energies, while developing more wind, solar and clean energies.   An overhaul of the energy grid so that every homeowner can equip their homes with solar panels and sell energy back to the grid can be financed in part by specific loans with the banks that are paid off with the energy sold to the grid.  America should be exporting energy to the developing world.

     Organized labor should also be required to have their union leaders swear in as commerce officers.  A federal insurance plan will be made available and direct investment and lending from government will be prioritized.  The labor board and consumer protection agency will maintain the trinity of business as American commerce officers are given powers and support coordinated with the state department to help expand trade and sell products to other nations.

      In coordination with the major American appliance retailers and effort will be made to push American made products and leave no product niche left without a domestic competitor on the showroom floor.  We are going to need to start building again, and we can build here, in America, with American workers.  There needs to be more coordination between colleges and employers to figure out what type of training they need and how to provide it.  New high-tech manufacturing plants are going to be prevalent, with localized production of goods to cut distribution costs.  Parks will be reopened, the forty-day workweek will return and paid vacation and sick days restored. 

    American crafts and arts guilds will be reestablished and funded to keep Americas most creative at work inspiring and celebrating our society and its cultural achievements.  Funding will return to music, film, dance, art and entertainment.  

    High-speed cable internet will be spread across the nation with no regions left behind.  As electric car designs become more aesethically pleasing we need to diversify our fleet with heavy subsidies for electric cars, hybrid cars and vehicles run on natural gas.  Diversifying our fleet’s fuel supply will create decrease demand for oil and gasoline, decreasing the cost.  We need the gas stations to change their set up to provide for these vehicles and to help business centers expand charging centers.  Cheap credit can responsibly push our nation forward, keep us at the forefront of innovation and push us into a robust recovery where the ills of unemployment and poverty are forgotten. 

     Universal Healthcare has to be prioritized, but pushed in increments, transitioning with health vouchers for those who do not want government healthcare.  While the federal government should start by creating a federal health insurance option for those under 65 and self-sufficient or for employers looking to comply with making health care affordable, states should be left with a requirement to leave no citizens sick and state managed plan to meet those needs either by state run hospitals or by contract with the private sector. 

    America should maintain its military while growing its state department over the next twenty years with ongoing commitment to push the Middle East, Africa and South America into the modern world by advancing market liberalization and human rights.  Together we can bring America into a bold future where no one is left hungry, sick, uneducated or unemployed.   This is a realistic and attainable future, we have the ability to make this a reality but it will take a combination of individual and collective action from citizens of all classes, businesses of all sizes and industries, churches and houses of worship, city and county governments, upper and lower houses of all states and the cooperation of both Democrats and Republicans. 

 America, lets get back to work.