1. Who's theft of land is being ignored?
2. And why do you think coming down hard on drug users is the solution?
And why do you think either of those are the solution to the war on terror and drugs respectively?
1. I would start the thought process with the illegal buildings on Palestinian lands; the consideration that as long as the US props up Israel and turns effectively blind eyes to the situation, continues to support it both militarily, morally (in private if not wholly in public at least) and financially, the US will be thought of as part and parcel of the Israeli action.
2. If there were no market for drugs, who would produce them and kill to maintain the industry? It has always been impossible to control production, mainly because much of it is abroad, but controlling the domestic buying market should be relatively easy, if the will were ever there. Corruption knows many friends, at all levels. Just think of the lack of action by the financial watchdogs in 2008 if you doubt: they were there, lying in their boxes, preferred not to bark, but kept an eye instead on the food plates being filled. Today some are advisers to government, instead of in prison.
There’s an interesting movie,
Inside Job, that has much to say on the subject.
The ‘west’ is often accused – mainly by its own revolutionaries - that its only interest is oil. Were that so, then there would not have ever been a problem: the Arabs are as willing to sell as the west to buy. The first thing post-invasion Iraq wanted was to export again, and Iran wants little more either. That it wishes a nuclear deterrent to its US-supported local nemesis is hardly rocket science nor unexpected. Few, anywhere, believe in the safety of verbal agreements and/or third-party defence promises. The sooner we learn to let ‘foreigners’ decide their own religious and domestic agendas, the better. We can’t, and shouldn’t, export our ideals as if they were sacrosanct, without flaw. They barely work for us!
My own opinion on the nuclear issue? I think that only those who already have it should be permitted its development. Its function as a final caller of bluff works: witness Cuba and the Missile Crisis. Any leader with even half a brain understands that unilateral deployment is tantamount to suicide. The danger, as ever, resides in those lands and minds where suicide is an honour, a fate better than life.
Rob C