Over the past couple of months there have been major civilian uprisings, starting with the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak's government in Egypt and now with the continuing attempt to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Throughout the ordeals the United States has responded variably according to alliances and relationships. The following Jon Stewart clip brings to the surface a unfortunate reality of how our government makes decisions on who to aid. While the Daily Show may be exaggerating our foreign policies, I think the message comes across clear and true.
Across the decades, as a nation, we have supported various countries in their liberation efforts, upholding our country's image as a beacon of freedom and hope. While from a humanitarian view this is admirable, from a budgetary view, continuous intervention is surely expensive. Plus there is the factor that we are not uniform in the aid we give to other nations. We truly are a rent-a-cop nation, the amount of advantage we see available to gain directly affects how willing or even if we aid another country. We are not simply aiding other countries to "stand up for freedom, stand up for justice, and stand up for the dignity of all people," as President Obama said, we are also aiding them because they have resources that we want to exploit; mainly oil in the case of Libya. If we were merely standing up for what is morally right we would have deployed troops to Darfur a long time ago, but because they have no available oil- or anything for that matter, for us, we have stood to the side as simple mediators as genocide occurs. If we were standing up for humanity we never would have been friends with the Libyan government that we are now supporting the overthrowing of. It appears as though we support who ever is holding the oil, whether it be the corrupt government or the rebel up-risers.
I'm by no means saying that we should spend our tax dollars fighting everyone else's wars, nor am I saying that we should take special interest in helping nations that have nothing to offer as an alliance. I'm saying that we should stop protecting the oil under the guise of protecting humanity. We should carefully and responsibly utilize the resources we have while making the transition to new forms of fuel. I am pleased with President Obama's intentions for the future of energy in this country, and I can only hope that we begin to make some serious changes as a nation so that we no longer have to play the role of rent-a-cop to nations entirely based on the oil they provide, so that we can stop having ulterior motives to our "humanitarian efforts."
As long as considering your whole point of view matters I say yes to you.But there are some negotiable ideas that I like to say.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I think you are choosing the best topic.It describes situation very well even the statement of rent-a-cop is so related.I undoubtedly think that oil plays the most important role and there are no other polices even 10% as significant as that and USA has actually supported this policy since starting of the cold war and as we see most of these dictators are fossils of those old days in which they were just useful to bring stability in oil fields. There was no argument of human right at that time.
Secondly,as a US citizen your expense consideration would be vital because these days people in USA has more to do with money than old days.I know nothing about economy but Its obvious that there are lots of pressure on people and no body like to spend his/her money on stupid political affairs.