Democrats win in US
November 13th, 2006 by ashish
Well, finally everything is decided. The democrats won the US elections by a fairly comprehensive margin, beating I am sure their own expectations by a wide margin. So, the democrats now control both the houses of the US congress.
What happens in the US reverberates around the world. One can only hope that this is a positive sign. There are any number of things which can be influenced both positively and negatively by this decision.
Iraq - I hope that this does not immediately start a push to get the US army out of Iraq. That would be a disaster for both Iraq and for the US. It would embolden radicals about beating the US army, and that the US has no stomach for a bloody war. It seems casual to talk about deaths in war, after all, these are actual soldiers who are dying, but war is never bloodless. The last time that the US departed like this, in Beirut after the Marine Barracks attack, caused a lot of terrorists to taste victory. Iraq would plunge into a cesspool of killings, far more than what happen today.
International terror - Not sure whether the democrats winning will cause a negative influence. When Clinton was the president, that was the time that saw a major growth in Bin Laden and company, and except for lobbying a few missiles, did not do anything much to stop this march. International terrorism needs to be countered by a swift and merciless hand, and not sure whether anybody could have done better than President Bush.
Environment - This is one area that should hopefully see a major improvement. Even though Bush remains the president, Congress can do quite a bit to make changes happen. They can far more to push for conservation, new technology such as bio-fuel, alternative methods to oil, and hopefully make America a world leader in such technologies.
Money matters - The last time Democrats were in a governing position, they managed to balance the budget, hopefully they should manage to do things similarly this time without taxing the economy too much.
