Foreign Policy

Recently President Bush has called for Robert Mugabe, the current leader of Zimbabwe, to step down. I want to consider not only this action of calling for his resignation but the recent history of the Zimbabwe situation and how America ought to respond in such a situation.

Earlier this year Mugabe urged his supporters to essentially kill members of the opposition. This resulted in a lot of deaths, including the opposition party leader's wife being butchered and tossed into a burning house. The first point is that these kinds of actions absolutely must be openly condemned. What has bothered me most about this is the lack of outcry from within the Catholic Church, most notably the pope. Mugabe is a Catholic and any Christian anywhere can agree that this kind of conduct is unbecoming of a Christian and Christians everywhere need to be open about this fact, mainly the leaders to whom the whole world will hear the voice of, aka, the pope. Nevertheless, America can issue a statement simply from a humanitarian perspective that this is not the kind of action that should occur anywhere.

Mugabe eventually pushed for the opposition party candidate to give up his run, because of the fear and loss of life involved from the tactics Mugabe used. With that being said, what should America do about this situation? Well, Zimbabwe is a reasonably democratic country, although Mugabe has taken more of that away recently, the people of Zimbabwe still have it within their power to solve this situation themselves, and we as Americans should respect that. If we make any kind of action it must be one of peace and not war, because the situation can be dealt with by the people of Zimbabwe. So by action of peace, what do I mean? I mean we can help those in need like we do everywhere through charities and the peace corps by providing basic medical attention and food wherever we can, but outside of that it will be diplomacy urging Mugabe to do the right thing, not to step down. When dealing with anyone you do not have direct power over(not like someone who works for you) you urge them to take the right course of action, or you point out what was done wrong, but you do not tell them what to do. This often leads to defiance and is a horrible practice, even in everyday life. Try telling someone they have to do something, then try telling someone they ought to do that something because it is right or because what they were doing is wrong. You will have better results with the latter because people want to believe that they have control over their lives.

The approach to every situation is different, there ought not to ever be a specific foreign policy that applies to every situation, because no situation is ever the same.

Most libertarians tend to be isolationist, for good reason. There was a definite intent by the founders to participate in war only when it was absolutely necessary. We have definitely wandered far from this position but we must be careful, if we are to change this current demeanor, in how isolationist we become; because to ignore oppression in this world is to place us in a position of condoning such behavior.

There is a fine line to walk.

As Elie Wiesel once said “neutrality helps the oppressor” (taken from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech). If you were to live in a neighborhood where people thought ill of you if you “ratted” on someone you saw that murdered someone, then your non-action for not turning that man in is saying that you choose to continue to live in such a world. By doing nothing we make this world worse, when there is obvious wrong.

What we need to do is set a guideline for what the line of intervention is.

That guideline must be based upon an assessment of the situation in which we are considering. The line is drawn when a group of people are no longer able to help themselves or change their current situation. The Holocaust was one of the most extreme and obvious examples and do not be fooled. Hitler stated he was going to bring about a Holocaust and we stood by and did nothing. We were shocked when we saw what had occurred in concentration camps, but an honest assessment of Hitler would have easily drawn a conclusion of what had occurred. We aren't responsible for the Holocaust, but we are responsible for being idle, knowing that it would happen. Imagine someone saying they are going to count to 10 out in the street and if someone didn't come and take the person they had bound in front of them away they were going to execute them. Do you think you would look kindly upon the person that went back in their house and said that's none of my business? Yet that's exactly what America did. (From Hitler himself: "Nor can I see a reason why the members of this race should be imposed upon the German nation, while in the States, which are so enthusiastic about these "splendid people," their settlement should suddenly be refused with every imaginable excuse")

We can't be a country that does nothing and we can't be a country that does everything. I will try to elaborate on the proverbial line more in a future post.