By Andy Myers
”Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all . . . The Nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.” (George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796)
I hate that term: “The War on Terror.” I hate using the word “hate.” But I feel so strongly that our foreign policy has gone awry that I can’t help but speak out. We should all feel a duty as Americans to protect and defend the Constitution the limits of which are made a mockery of by the misguided “intellectuals” in Washington and their taxpayer funded “think tanks” who call the shots and continually get it wrong. Their punishment is a promotion to some other bureaucratic agency where they can wreck more havoc and again disregard the rule of law. Even congress, who’s authority it is, doesn’t even have the fortitude to “declare war” as outlined in Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution anymore.
Can you imagine what our founder’s would think of our foreign policy exploits and the executive powers held by the President today?
Death, destruction-reconstruction, and the bankrupting of behaving as an “empire” will only garner additional support for those who despise our overreaching foreign policy behavior.
Nations don’t hate us because of our way of life or our freedom. They despise our government’s never ending meddling in their internal affairs. Ask yourself how you would feel if a “foreign” nation were on our soil doing what we are doing in over 130 countries and over 700 bases around the world. You know all too well you’d be fighting mad!
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes-known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” (James Madison, Political Observations, 1795)
Our military overstretch and the liberties and freedoms we are losing everyday is frightening. Even President Eisenhower’s prophetic warning to the American people of the threat from an ever increasing military industrial complex hardly garners attention and yet today this warning stands as true as ever. Don’t get me wrong I’m no isolationist, and I don’t think there aren’t any credible threats out there that shouldn’t be dealt with. But, I firmly believe that what we are doing today in terms of dissipating the threats to our country are wrongheaded and misleading the American public along with exacerbating the threat of another possible attack all the while bankrupting this country.
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Like most think tank propaganda carefully chosen by the government and it’s cohorts through mainstream media pulpits, the average “patriotic” American along with elected leaders and worse-our children-are easily indoctrinated into believing we must do “everything” in our power including military occupations, torture and renditions to make America safe from those who would seek to harm us. But, where do you draw the line? Do two wrongs make a right? Madeline Albright’s infamous interview on 60 Minutes is a perfect example of reprehensible logic and sadly is very common place with today’s foreign policy “experts.” Here is the excerpt:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price we think the price is worth it.” (60 Minutes, 5/12/96)
“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds… [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our mismanagers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers… And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another ]… til the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.” (Thomas Jefferson)
I am also convinced that the American people cannot remain free and prosperous with over 700 military bases around the world, troops in over 130 countries, and a steady diet of war propaganda. Our military overstretch is undermining our national security and bankrupting our country all the while making us here at home less free and safe. I believe that those who have been calling “the shots” are terribly misguided. And, that if something isn’t done soon to educate and change the way the grassroots movements across the country think about our overreaching empire abroad, our constitutional republic, our children and their children will pay a punishing price in both lives and treasure.
“Truth is Treason in an Empire of Lies.” (Congressman Ron Paul)
Something that is a “fundamental must” in understanding if we are even to be able to grasp what role America should adhere to here at home and abroad is in the theory of natural rights that was espoused by our forefathers and by John Locke (1632-1704). In his Second Treatise, Locke stated that every man was entitled to life, liberty, and property (his “natural rights”) provided that exercising those rights does not intrude on others rights, and that the role of government in natural-rights theory is to protect those rights.
Without staying true to this tenet, America will be damned just as every other civilization has been in it’s pursuit of “empire.”