A Foreign Policy of Nonintervention...

I have recently been studying the U.S. foreign policy of the last 40 years. I am shocked at how flawed our policy has been and how many lives we've could have saved if we just minded our own business.

Starting back in the 1890's with the Spanish-American war, the United States seemed to get involved in every war since.

If you really study the legislation that was going through Congress in the past 20 years you can really see that the September 11th attacks in 2001 were provoked attacks. The so called "terrorists" did not just think one day "I think I'll go and attack those American's over there. I think they need something to do anyway."

It seems as though the President and Congressmen have forgotten the wise words of Thomas Jefferson when he said, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none."

In the years before September 11th we've seen total chaos in the Middle East. In fact this has been going on for thousands of years. But it's been only recently (roughly in the past 30 years) that the U.S. has been getting their hands into it. About 99% of the time, our involement in the Middle East has absolutly nothing to do with protecting our country.

We've seen the Persian Gulf War, wars involving Russia, Iran, and Iraq, confrontations with the Taliban in Afghanistan and U.S. boming of Iraq for almost 13 years in the Middle East these past 30 years. The U.S. has rarely stayed out of these fights. Most of the time the United States backs one side or the other, but in some cases they actually supplied both sides. It is fact that in the past we've backed both Sadam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin which later became our enemies.

None of these, by the way, were declared wars by the United States. The last declared war that we've had was WW2 when we declared war on Germany and Japan. The Congress has alowed this U.S. involvement to go on.

But there was one man who did stand up against these interventions by the U.S. : Ron Paul. I like what he said during a debate on whether or not the U.S. should back Israel or Palestine. Here is what he said (On December 5, 2001 before the House):

"We hear today talk about having solidarity with Israel. Others get up and try in their best way to defend the Palestinians and the Arabs. So it is sort of a contest: should we be pro-Israel or pro-Arab, or anti-Israel or anti-Arab, and how are we perceived in doing this? It is pretty important.

But I think there is a third option to this that we so often forget about. Why can we not be pro-American? What is in the best interests of the United States? We have not even heard that yet...."

I agree, why can't we be pro-American? Why can't we mind our own business? It is shocking to see how many times America has sent troops out to be killed for a reason that has nothing to do with protecting America.

It is true that when the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 happened, the U.S. had troops in 148 countries and we had been bombing Iraq for the past 12 years.

I believe it was the duty of the United States to find and punish those who attacked us on September 11th, but what happened to that mission? Not very long afterwards our mission changed from finding and punishing those who attacked us to nation building. And then we went ahead and invaded Iraq to establish a new government. We still have no evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the September 11th attacks.

I believe this intervention policy that the United States has had for years is a direct cause of the mess we're in right now. It was the direct cause of the needless deaths on September 11th 2001. It is a big cause of the debt were in now.

We should have listened when George Washington was making his Farewell Speech when he said:

"The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible..."

We can also learn from Thomas Jefferson when he said:

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be".