Here’s the general problem: if you want the U.S. to be a force for good in the world and stand up for human rights, it probably shouldn’t just do those things when there’s something in it for the U.S. That’s not even enlightened self-interest, it’s regular self-interest, and you can draw a very direct line from ‘the U.S. should only get involved in international crises when there’s a damn good reason’ to ‘war for oil.’
Then you need to lobby Congress on education and food stamp or social program funding because there is just no connection between these things. This is one of the lamer false equivalences that we’re seeing in the Syria debate. Even if nothing happens with Syria, a lot of people in Congress will be opposed to providing these kinds of services. You’ll recall a couple of candidates from one party have proposed eliminating the Department of Education because they don’t think the federal government should be involved in education.
That’s unfortunate. It’s a big world, and it’s not going to get any simpler if the U.S. ignores it. It just means people will be more confused when problems in other countries affect them- and I’m not just talking about terrorist attacks.
Who do you think is going to do anything about it? Not a lot of countries are capable or interested. Which isn’t to say there aren’t some huge problems with proposing an attack on Syria. I don’t know if there’s anything close to a clear plan for what happens next if (for example) Assad’s chemical weapons are destroyed. But the reasons being offered here aren’t very compelling or sensible.
Ask somebody in Rwanda or Darfur about the U.S. getting involved in every international conflict. Or you could ask a Syrian since the fighting there has been going on for 2 1/2 years. It’s been a while since anybody used chemical weapons precisely because the ban on them is taken pretty seriously. (Of course the U.S. did not intervene the last time it happened either because they were being used by then-ally Iraq against Iran.) That’s something that can change if countries stop caring about that ban, and that would be good for precisely nobody.
Yep, it also isn’t really the same as the athiest communist attitude of "Not only should we not get involved but should kill millions of our own citizens who we suspect disagree with us.
Fair enough. You might want to be a bit more careful about what portions of claims you quote, though, because it appeared that you were baldfacedly saying that there are no Americans who go to bed hungry.
It is more important because the government has a greater obligation to its own people than to the rest of the world. Giving money to charity is good, but not when it means letting your own children go hungry.
The US government still has obligations to the rest of the world, but the most important of these is merely “don’t make things worse”.
My sentiments exactly. What reason is there to believe we can intervene militarily in a way that’s more likely to do good than harm?
With all due respect to Marley23, it’s easy to see how we could have saved a huge number of lives by intervening in Rwanda. But here, there’s a principle we’ve got good reasons for wanting to uphold - no use of chemical weapons - but no way to punish the offender that I can see except by even further destabilizing Syria. Just because it’s a mess now, doesn’t mean we can’t make it even worse.
In terms of the debate, I admit to a certain willingness to get involved. But I’ve long thought that this sort of thing should be viewed as punitive. Instead of blowing up some HQ someplace, better to smack some official residence. Make it personal for Assad. Let it be seen as trying to punish the person who used WMD rather than the country.
I don’t disagree with that. I was responding to the comment that the U.S. gets involved in every international conflict or every international conflict that involves chemical weapons. It doesn’t.
I believe that the United States military has done a lot of good worldwide, most particularly during WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. Unfortunately there are many people who look at any third-world conflict and become convinced that the USA could repeat those past performances.
The problem is this. During WWI, WWII, and the Korean War, there were free countries fighting against unjustified invasions by totalitarian countries. The free countries indisputably wanted American assistance, and the free countries readily and happily cooperated with the USA during and after the war.
By contrast, in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya or Syria, that’s not the situation. In these cases the people either didn’t want the American military to be present at all, or they are happy to have as overthrow their enemy but they’re not much interested in peaceful coexistence with us. Does anyone honestly believe that Syria, five years from now, will be a success story comparable to West Germany in 1950?
Overall I’m in agreement with RTFirefly that we’d help more people with medical aid to people who are happy to see us, as opposed to bombing people who don’t like us.
I wonder if you could point out where John Stamos’ left Ear used the term “Significant number”, since you seem to have added that as a bit of an attempt at goal-post moving. It’s very well done too, since I"m sure you can argue for eternity about what “a significant number” actually means, so you can never actually be wrong.
Since WWII - which is its own category and use of it is quite dishonet when it comes to some 3rd world country bombing parade - since WWII what country was “not much interested in peaceful coexistence with us”?
Name one!
Let me cut to the chase - there is not a single country so your whole argument rings pretty hollow.
I (personally) have and use a lot of tools, including several kinds of hammer. I well know the reality that when I’m holding one, lots of things look like nails. I also (as a citizen of the USA) have a huge bunch of military tools, and it isn’t very hard for me to see world situations that would benefit from a good smashing.
But even if we could cleanly and definitively target Assad’s residences and workplaces, I think it highly unlikely that we’d catch him inside. So we’d actually be “punishing” him by killing a bunch of his relatives, or maybe some housekeepers, nannies, and cooks and a smattering of bureaucrats. I don’t think I can reconcile this murder of innocents with an avowed purpose of imparting justice for the murders of innocents. As RTFirefly suggests, I’d rather we don’t make things worse.
It seems to me that when the U.S. uses it’s military power (as in the explosive kind) to save lives, things don’t get a whole lot better. I’m lookin’ at Iraq, Afghanistan. The folks there see us as “invaders”, not do-gooders, even if we go in and build some schools or what-not, afterwards.
When we help out with natural disasters (Burma Typhoon, Indonesia’s & Japan’s Tsunamis, Haiti earthquake relief, etc), we seem to have better results. (At least, we don’t leave a trail of bad feelings behind us.)
I empathize with the OP. There’s a lot of slippery ground between Bush and Neville Chamberlain. Sometimes I wish we could just withdraw all of our assets from the international community, and start from scratch: who are our friends?
But that’s simplistic in the extreme, of course. I do think there’s something to be said for staying out of the Middle East, especially, as much as practicable.
I think he declined to make an assessment of whether the number was “significant” or not, and that you are putting words in his mouth. Even setting aside the significant/not significant argument, you are still making up the “because of foreign aid” clause from whole cloth.
That said, according the US census, 15% of Americans are below the poverty line. Even assuming only 1/3rd of THOSE people don’t always have enough to eat (seems absurd to me, but whatever), then we are still left with what I would consider a significant number.
The OP does imply that the U.S. should be spending money domestically instead of on foreign affairs and the military. But that’s a lot more general than foreign aid.
So I believe it is fair to say that it is not an insignificant number. Certainly, it makes this exchange:
pretty silly.
Americans do go to bed hungry. It is undeniable that the higher ends of poverty in this country do not compare to that of third world countries, however I thought it was ridiculous when Fox News made a big deal about the Heritage Foundation report that poor people had it so good here (as did Stephen Colbert) and I think it’s ridiculous to claim that “there aren’t” “Americans who go to bed hungry.”