Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:07:59 PM
This post is an email I wrote to a VERY liberal family member. This relates some important points that everyone should remember, America is unique among all the countries in the world.
The critics of America deny that there is anything unique about
America, and they feel the idea that the American "model" is one that
others should seek to follow is stupid/foolish etc.. By detailing past
and present crimes of America, they hope to get apologies and
reparations from Americans. Some even justify murderous attacks
against America on the grounds that what America does, and what she
stands for, invite such attacks.
The
outcome of America's "engagments" around the world is determined by
America's will to prevail. Americans need to believe they are on the
side of good, they usually are.
America's enemies assert that America's influence has been, and still is "destructive and wicked."
Criticism
comes from multiculturalists-they allege racism (thruout our history)
and the "oppression of minorities," from Western leftists who see
America as a force for evil in the world, and the Islamic
fundamentalists who view America as "decadent and morally degenerate."
Critics of U.S. foreign policy judge it in a
way they apply to no one else. They attack America for promoting its
self-interest while expecting other countries to protect their
self-interest. Why should America act in any other way? You might-and
I'm sure you will-mention U.S. backing for Latin American, Asian and
Middle Eastern dictators, please note the U.S. eventually turned
against these regimes, and aided in its ouster.
Now
I have to mention an idea in foreign policy "the principle of the
lesser evil." This is something which I have tried to explain before,
this idea means that we should not pursue a thing that seems good if it
is likely to result in something worse. Now a second part of this is
that we are usually justified in "allying with a bad guy in order to
oppose a regime that is even more terrible." An example of this is
in World War Two, the U.S. allied with Stalin-a very bad man-to
defeat someone who was worse (and a greater threat at the time)
Hitler. The backing of some of these dictators were measures taken to
fight the Cold War-if you accept that the Russians were the "evil
empire."
Now
second; understand situations change, and policies must be devised to
deal with a particular situation at a given time. It is foolish to
hold the U.S. responsible for "inconsistently" changing its policy when
the situation that justified the original policy has changed. This
will explain that by this reasoning the support of Saddam in the late
70s and early 80s was understandable when the greater threat came from
Iran. Also was the U.S. providing weapons in the 80s to the
"mujahideen" (even if this group included Osama) in order to drive the
Soviets out of Afghanistan. Then under new circumstances, Saddam and
bin Laden became greater threats, and America shifted its focus. This
I have tried to explain to you over and over again. How can anyone
fault policymakers in the 70s and 80s for not possessing knowledge
about Saddam and Osama that was not known till the 90s?
I
will concede to the critics that America is not always in the right.
What the critics ignore is the other side. The U.S. twice in the last
century saved the world: first from the Nazis then from the Soviet
Union. Now even though the U.S. does not have a serious military rival
in the world today America has not acted in the manner of regimes in
the past that have occupied this position.
Even
as America bombed the Taliban's hideouts, its planes dropped food to
avert starvation of the Afghan civilians. What other country does
this?
"Americans need to face the truth about
themselves, no matter how pleasant it is." Jeane Kirkpatrick. Now if
some group of Arabs, or Africans kill 10,000 of their own people, the
world complains and then goes about its normal business. We expect
them to do these things. Contrast this with what happens, if America,
in a war, accidently bombs a school or hospital and kills civilians,
there is an uproar and investigation. What this shows is America's
moral superiority.
This
moral superiority of America is denied by leftist intellectuals,
American multiculturalists and (as we all know) Islamic
fundamentalists. These are the "blame America first" group. The only
group I want to get into now is the multiculturalists. Their view is
no culture is superior to any other culture, all cultures are basically
equal, this is what's called "cultural relativism." This appeals to
American intellectuals because they don't like to approach other
societies with the idea that their own way is always better. This idea
of cultural equality strikes them as much fairer.
By
denying that there are universal standards of human rights,
multiculturalista become apologists for tyranny. The fact that most
immigrants from around the world choose to come to the U.S., would be
grounds enough-but I would have to into the entire Islamic
fundamentalist argument abt America and it's low principles, but this
is long enough.
America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in existence.