Foreign Policy
As the remaining free superpower in the world, the United States must serve as a beacon of truth for the oppressed multitudes of the world. The freedoms granted to our people, the compassion shown by our government and our charities, to those who cry out from the depths of despair, and the strength of our military, held in the balance of our desires for peace and the protection of our global interests.
Our foreign policy must be one encouraging the propagation of freedom. Not necessarily democracy, but freedom, the right of a people to determine their government and to have a government accountable to that people. We must not use our military as a preemptive force to enforce or create that freedom. True change comes at the behest of those who desire that change, not from an outside party. Time and time again, the U.S. has attempted nation-building, and each time, those attempts have cost the lives of American soldiers and citizens, as well as the moral standing Americans have enjoyed throughout the world. Each time, as well, the experiments have gone astray.
We must encourage freedom through trade, through diplomacy, through charity, through support of freedom-loving nations and through non-military punitive measures toward those nations who seek to oppress and enslave their people. Where true freedom flowers throughout the world, our nation must be willing to support the self-sufficiency of the free government, while allowing the people of that government to define the future of their nation.
We must also be willing to show the ferocious might our military does possess, when an enemy attacks our people, our land or our allies. Our military and political leaders must be willing to commit forces necessary for a complete and total victory, in the quickest possible fashion, in any combat situation our forces encounter. We must also be willing to keep a standing military ready for this option; a military prepared with numbers, equipment and training advantages over any potential adversary.
One part of our national identity is that our country believes in the rights of soldiers and civilians alike to be treated with human dignity. In fact, part of the reason we invaded Saddam Hussein's Iraq was to rid that country of the rape rooms, torture chambers and genocide he created and perpetrated. At first, questions regarding our treatment of captured insurgents and terrorism suspects surfaced at Abu Ghraib prison. Now, with the "need" to interrogate potential terrorists, we find our nation on a precipice. Do we sacrifice our moral standing as a nation, for possible information to protect that nation? I say that we cannot. We do not fight wars only to save our government our land from occupation. We are fighting terrorists because we disagree with their way of life. Part of that way of life is torture and a complete disrespect for human life and dignity. Our nation fights to defend the causes it holds to be true and just. One of these has always been that torture, in any form, is wrong.
Senator John McCain, a former POW, has come out against the use of torture by American troops. I can think of no one more appropriate to speak on the subject. The North Vietnamese, who wanted the names of his fellow flyers, tortured Senator McCain, as a young man. As he was being beaten and mangled, Senator McCain gave them what they wanted, as he rattled off the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line. Torture, as often as not, results in such accurate information. Questionable results, moral apprehension and the possibility that future enemies will use our methods to justify torture of our soldiers, are all outstanding reasons for the United States to not be put in a place where we must defend our interrogation practices.
Whether in the cause we use for military actions, the conduct of our military during that action or the diplomacy we attempt to exhaust before beginning an attack, the United States should endeavor to be constantly occupy whatever moral high ground is possible within the theater of armed combat.