Lazarus Austin is a junior majoring in history. He can be contacted at [email protected].In 1952, Republican Gen. Eisenhower was elected to end the Korean War. In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected to end the Vietnam War. Until Sept. 11, Republicans had always been known as non-interventionists.
In 2000, George Bush ran on a humble foreign policy platform, one where the United States would not be concerned with policing the world as Bill Clinton had done in Somalia, Kosovo and Bosnia.
George Washington and the Founding Fathers advised against getting involved in foreign wars and entangling alliances.
What would the Founding Fathers think of us today?
Sept. 11 is being used as an instrument of foreign policy to conquer and build nations and take away our personal liberties. It has been used as an excuse to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and potentially Iran or Syria.
According to Bush, “America was targeted for attack because we are the brightest beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world.”
According to Osama bin Laden, they attacked us because of our ties with Israel, the Saudi royal family and our many bases in the Muslim world, including the ones in their holy land.
In fact, our overall foreign policy has been the problem, but those who criticize it are labeled “unpatriotic” and “un-American.” In the South Carolina debate, Ron Paul suggested that terrorists attacked us because we are “over there.” Consequently, Giuliani claimed that was a “pretty extraordinary statement” and recommended that Ron Paul revoke his statement and apologize.
His comments were misinterpreted to mean that the American people are to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks. Our foreign policy is to blame, not the American people. My girlfriend can come home from a bad day at work and shoot me because I did not put the toilet seat down. That doesn’t mean what she did was right or that I am to blame for my death. It just means that I invited it.
People like Rudy Giuliani like to hide behind the veil of patriotism. They want us to sacrifice our beliefs, ignore the facts and become like robots in their gung-ho machine. They want to censor us because we are “un-American.”
After the debate, Ron Paul gave Rudy Giuliani a reading list, one book of which was the “9/11 Commission Report,” which explicitly states in many ways that our foreign policy contributes to anti-Americanism and terrorism. The CIA has agreed with this assessment, including an explicit statement by former CIA Bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer.
Sept. 11 and most other terrorist attacks are examples of what is called “blowback.” For a whole decade after the first Persian Gulf War, we bombed Iraq and forced sanctions. For the last 50 years, we have supported Muslim tyrants and dictators around the world, including the Saudi royal family, Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. In the 1950s, we installed the Shah, who became an oppressive dictator. What happened? The people revolted, installed the Ayatollah and kidnapped Americans. The USS Cole was attacked because of our involvement in Lebanon. The list goes on.
The United States itself was founded because the British Empire decided to mettle with the colonies too much. We have to be able to look at it through their eyes. How would we like it if China came over here and established bases in North America? We would be resentful.
Conservatives have traditionally been the non-interventionists. Now they are pandering to fear. Everyone cites the threat to our national security and claims “desperate times call for desperate measures.”
The Muslim world is not a threat to our national security. Only Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The others are not likely to develop them soon, and none of them have the capabilities to attack the United States with a nuclear weapon unless they sneak one in with a terrorist. However, because of our foreign commitments, we are more likely to be attacked this way. We are more concerned with the border between Iraq and Syria than we are our own.
In our quest to protect our national security, we have already killed 1,000 more Americans than were killed on Sept. 11.
My all-time favorite quote comes from “Spider-Man.” “With great power comes great responsibility.” However, in relation to America, we have spread ourselves too thin and must think about America first. We have a responsibility to our own people, and we have neglected that it.
America needs to return to its Republican roots. We are supposed to be the brightest beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world, but in the quest to defend it, we are losing that claim.
We are resorting to torture, revoking our rights, alienating the rest of the world and compromising our security back home.
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.