Tourism slump worries US

A memo to the logic-challenged in both Washngton and the tourist industry: it will take one heck of a lot more than mere promotion to encourage people to fly to the US as tourists.

What we have in place now at airports which is being hyped as 'security is nothing more than a dog and pony show to demonstrate to people that we are doing something - anything, no matter how absurd - to allegedly prevent terror.

What is really going to prevent terror in this country is an enlightened foreign policy formulated by people who understand how to work in concert with the nations of the world, and doesn't constantly flaunt America's military capabilities as a club, to be used over and over again by an international bully.

'Spreading democracy, American style' has become an oxymoron in the eyes of most of the rest of the world, and it's high time some folks in Washington have a wake-up call to that fact.

The following email was sent to the Honolulu Advertiser. I am posting it here since it is unlikely it will be printed.

"The American tourist industry is painfully aware that many travellers are put off by the tough visa requirements and the hostile reception that can greet them at the country's airports."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-2360948,00.html

Hawaii is, as much as any other state in the union, dependent on tourism for its economy. That is a hard fact of life here in the islands. And it is a hard fact that the treatment one gets going through airports has become a major deterrent to travel. A good friend, who used to come to Hawaii regularly but now chooses to go elsewhere, put it this way. "How can I relax on your island when I am treated like a POW getting in and out?"

This "War on Terror" nonsense is costing the state billions of dollars. The reality is that it is quite easy to stop terror. Just stop screwing around with other peoples' countries. Stop invading countries while claiming they have 'nookular' bombs then feigning embarrassment when it turns out they don't. Stop using 9-11 or "Al Qaeda" as the excuse to invade countries, then admit after-the-fact that said targeted country had nothing to do with 9-11 and was as much an enemy of Al Qaeda as the US. Stop making wars on other people and they will stop making wars on us. Because that is what terror is, the reaction to seeing your family torn apart by weapons stamped "Made in the USA".

All the hostile treatment at the airports, the long lines, the taking off of shoes, the confiscation of pens and swiss-army knives, the fondling of our wives and daughters, and the driving away of our tourism industry, is the direct result of a policy of conquest beng executed across the rest of the world. Along with the wasted lives, wasted tax money, loss of international respect that these wars of conquest cause, the erosion of your tourist-based business is just another cost of the war, a cost the officials in Washington are too happy to pay because, after all, it isn't their money and their livlihood being ruined.

All the excuses for why we "must" go to war are fake, as fake as when Hitler told Germany Poland was about to attack them and marched us all off into World War 2. Germany suffered for going along with those lies, just as we are starting to suffer by going along with the lies of the war-mongers in Washington. It isn't some far-off problem; it is happening to you right now. Every day that your tourism-based business sees fewer customers is a direct result of the war policy that makes up lies about this or that nation having 'nookular' weapons or being a threat of some kind. These wars and lies used to sell the wars are taking customers from your store, and food from your children's mouths.

And you are the only people who can make them stop. You can stop this policy of wars of conquest making enemies of the rest of the world by voting out the war makers this November. It doesn't matter which party they are in. If they support the war and the lies used to sell those wars, get them out.

Because in the end, THESE are the absolute facts of the matter.

1. Iraq did not have nuclear weapons. The IAEA and CIA confirmed this.

2. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. Bush admits this.

3. Iraq was not supporting Al Qaeda. Congress reported this.

4. Your business is being crippled by all the security put in place to protect us from those people of Iraq who just might be carrying a grudge. You know this.

Do you want to repeat that same tragic formula with Iran?