Sunday, August 17, 2008
GLOBALIZATION HAS LIMITS
For a number of years now, we have been on a “globalization” kick. Of course, this has primarily been felt in such realms as commerce, education, scientific exchange, and cultural exchange.
But we citizens have been encouraged to think internationally. This is clear in our country’s diplomacy, our policies of military interventionism, our trade agreements and the like.
Unfortunately, this world view has led us into various military alliances, the principal one being a highly expanded NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). More and more we have assumed the role of international policeman.
We have made more and more international political obligations which put us into a position of promising military aid and intervention in remote areas and in new nations which are not culturally or historically akin to us, or even to our traditional European allies.
During certain periods of our history, we have been warned by conservative leaders who remind us of President George Washington’s admonition in his farewell address: “Beware of entangling foreign alliances.” We wonder if this is not a good time to recall such advice.
World War I was begun after the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in the Serbian capital of Sarajevo. The aligned dominoes of treaty entanglements led every major nation in Europe into a disastrous conflagration.
Having been critical of President Bush for his costly Iraq adventure into interventionism, we must now offer laurels for his relying on diplomacy in the current situation between Russia and its former province of Georgia. As some of our friends would say, “We don’t have a dog in that fight!”
It must be difficult for our president to talk out of two sides of his mouth, criticizing Russia’s military incursion into a bordering former province while defending his own invasion of another clearly sovereign nation in a strange part of the world. Nevertheless, we applaud him for his current restraint. We do suggest he not trap himself by talking too much.
It should be clear to everybody now that Americans do not take positively to foreign wars protecting other people’s rights or other people’s governments. Our criterion for war involves our own national interest being clearly at stake with an obvious and present danger. No more esoteric smoke and mirror explanations like stopping communism, fighting terrorists, or people threatening us in some obscure way.
American ground forces are no longer feared by those who are tempted toward international criminality. Our forces are bogged down and exhausted in Iraq. We have naval and air power, however, that should be recognized as a threat anywhere on the globe.
While one of our candidates for president is focused on Iraq and only secondarily on Afghanistan, the other is focused primarily on a military build-up in the latter country. A few free-thinking Americans are now beginning to question whether either is correct.
This may soon become an open dispute. We hope so.
Afghanistan has a government formed from a coalition of tribes who fought to run the Taliban leaders out of the country. They are still deep in tribalism. If the people there will not support a representational government, and if they want their religious autocracy back, then they are likely to get what they want regardless of our efforts to the contrary.
We do not see the wisdom of taking on another nation-building project costly in American lives and substance. We did not accomplish our basic goal in going there as far as bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. But secondarily, we did punish the Taliban for harboring the guy.
Now, we are trying to shore up a weak government and kill the poppy fields which the rural peasants depend upon as their money crop. This was not our mission.
Meanwhile, Osama is off in the hill country of Pakistan, among friendly folk, carrying on a primitive but communicative lifestyle. We are harassing him with helicopters and drones.
This reminds us of Bill Clinton’s earlier response with a missile attack on Osama’s base camp after Al Qaeda’s embassy and Cole attacks. We missed getting him by a matter of hours. But this was clearly a type of response preferable to organizing a huge army, invading the country, and then forgetting why we are there.
People should begin to convey to our presidential candidates that the people of America are tired of foreign wars, especially if these are presidential adventures and not declared in the manner prescribed by our Constitution. We are tired of international conflicts in which our national interests require complex explanation and justification.
Some entangling alliance of questionable wisdom with a government in some far part of the planet is not a sufficient reason for our becoming involved in a world conflagration.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
But we citizens have been encouraged to think internationally. This is clear in our country’s diplomacy, our policies of military interventionism, our trade agreements and the like.
Unfortunately, this world view has led us into various military alliances, the principal one being a highly expanded NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). More and more we have assumed the role of international policeman.
We have made more and more international political obligations which put us into a position of promising military aid and intervention in remote areas and in new nations which are not culturally or historically akin to us, or even to our traditional European allies.
During certain periods of our history, we have been warned by conservative leaders who remind us of President George Washington’s admonition in his farewell address: “Beware of entangling foreign alliances.” We wonder if this is not a good time to recall such advice.
World War I was begun after the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in the Serbian capital of Sarajevo. The aligned dominoes of treaty entanglements led every major nation in Europe into a disastrous conflagration.
Having been critical of President Bush for his costly Iraq adventure into interventionism, we must now offer laurels for his relying on diplomacy in the current situation between Russia and its former province of Georgia. As some of our friends would say, “We don’t have a dog in that fight!”
It must be difficult for our president to talk out of two sides of his mouth, criticizing Russia’s military incursion into a bordering former province while defending his own invasion of another clearly sovereign nation in a strange part of the world. Nevertheless, we applaud him for his current restraint. We do suggest he not trap himself by talking too much.
It should be clear to everybody now that Americans do not take positively to foreign wars protecting other people’s rights or other people’s governments. Our criterion for war involves our own national interest being clearly at stake with an obvious and present danger. No more esoteric smoke and mirror explanations like stopping communism, fighting terrorists, or people threatening us in some obscure way.
American ground forces are no longer feared by those who are tempted toward international criminality. Our forces are bogged down and exhausted in Iraq. We have naval and air power, however, that should be recognized as a threat anywhere on the globe.
While one of our candidates for president is focused on Iraq and only secondarily on Afghanistan, the other is focused primarily on a military build-up in the latter country. A few free-thinking Americans are now beginning to question whether either is correct.
This may soon become an open dispute. We hope so.
Afghanistan has a government formed from a coalition of tribes who fought to run the Taliban leaders out of the country. They are still deep in tribalism. If the people there will not support a representational government, and if they want their religious autocracy back, then they are likely to get what they want regardless of our efforts to the contrary.
We do not see the wisdom of taking on another nation-building project costly in American lives and substance. We did not accomplish our basic goal in going there as far as bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. But secondarily, we did punish the Taliban for harboring the guy.
Now, we are trying to shore up a weak government and kill the poppy fields which the rural peasants depend upon as their money crop. This was not our mission.
Meanwhile, Osama is off in the hill country of Pakistan, among friendly folk, carrying on a primitive but communicative lifestyle. We are harassing him with helicopters and drones.
This reminds us of Bill Clinton’s earlier response with a missile attack on Osama’s base camp after Al Qaeda’s embassy and Cole attacks. We missed getting him by a matter of hours. But this was clearly a type of response preferable to organizing a huge army, invading the country, and then forgetting why we are there.
People should begin to convey to our presidential candidates that the people of America are tired of foreign wars, especially if these are presidential adventures and not declared in the manner prescribed by our Constitution. We are tired of international conflicts in which our national interests require complex explanation and justification.
Some entangling alliance of questionable wisdom with a government in some far part of the planet is not a sufficient reason for our becoming involved in a world conflagration.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
