Foregin Policy Part 2

The Argument for intervention.

As I had said previously, neutrality, doing nothing to stop an oppressor, is the same as agreeing with the oppressive action as far as results are concerned. The result is an oppressor who continues to do what we consider wrong. This argument does not entail going to war with every country that performs an oppressive action, all this entails is doing something. What we do I will address in a later post.

So this is the inevitable chain of events: There is oppression somewhere. The oppressor kills millions of innocent people and no one stops them. They continue to oppress others in other areas because they are left unchallenged. The eventuality is that they will be at your doorstep someday. As Martin Niemöller once wrote in a poem which has different translations, but I will use the translation at the New England Holocaust memorial. "They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

There are times in life in which we wish we would have had a little bit (or a lot in some cases) of courage to stand up for another, even though it would have been an inconvenience for us. The truth is that people who are oppressed are looking for someone to help them, they ask how could the world let this happen? But it is because it is an inconvenience. And if it happens to you, after having watched it happen to others, suddenly you ask the same question that they asked and you wonder why no one comes.

There are two worlds to live in. One where people stand up for what is right and one where people hide behind a cowardly principle of non-interference in other cultures, stating intellectual reasoning that covers up the self cowardice. How can we hold the founding documents with such reverence when we blatantly disregard those words when they become inconvenient? Does the belief of life and liberty end at the borders of our nation? If they do they are not beliefs at all, indeed convenience has become the word of the day for our world. I will help those in need when it is convenient for me. I will stand up for what is right when it is convenient for me. I'll do what I want otherwise.

We have become a nation of people with no beliefs at all. Convenience has Christians ignore the life that Christ taught to live in his Sermon on the Mount because such a life would be too difficult. Convenience has seared the conscience of all men as technology makes our lives easier, to quote Star Trek Insurrection: "When you create a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man;" we have become lackadaisical, in that we have obtained no greater wisdom or responsibility in obtaining knowledge. I think too often our world has become one in which it was said in Jurassic Park by Jeff Goldblum playing Ian Malcolm: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." The meaning of such a quote can be further clarified with two quotes everyone has heard before: "to whom much is given, much is expected" and "with great knowledge comes great responsibility."

With new knowledge and technology it becomes easier to do things which before seemed unreasonable. This means that the thinking has changed since the founding of our nation, but we must not forget that the intent has not changed. It means that things which our Founders considered inconceivable in such a time as was their lives, might be a simple act which everyone in America can perform now.

We must admit to ourselves that to ignore what happens in this world through an ignorant philosophy to not interfere with other cultures is not somehow some greater wisdom bestowed upon us. The laurels of such a belief has yielded a world unwilling and unmotivated to stop genocide. While we take time to complain about gas prices or how this recession might mean giving up the family cell phone plan or your monthly high speed internet access, they take time to kill more people. With all of my wisdom I cannot comprehend how we can feel compassion for a senior who has to work a few more years before retiring because of the current economy, but we can't find that same compassion for a man who dies a horrible death in another country. But the answer is simple: convenience.

I have devised what I believe to be the isolationist message to the rest of the world:

Survival means becoming a coward; never standing up for what you believe in; always saying "yes sir" no matter what the directive is. Survival means becoming a biological robot; never thinking for yourself, always ignoring the truth and what is right. Survival means that to exist, you will never truly live, and to be free you must die.


Rebut what you will, but we have done nothing and that message has been sent. That is the real message of freedom we have given to this world.

I must end this on the right note. I do not believe in intervention everywhere. I do not believe that war is the answer anywhere, necessarily. I believe that our current policy is to do nothing in those parts of the world where oppression occurs and this must change. Every problem usually starts out small, we must be quick and decisive in every situation, but of course, not quick to war. If we had acted appropriately we could have given Ho Chi Minh his democracy and adverted communism in Vietnam and a war that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people (Read and weep how Wilson and Truman and others, ignored Minh's plight for a democracy because of obvious political reasons). Right action is what we need and we won't get it with politicians that currently infest Washington. They aren't the cure, they are the disease.