FOREIGN IDEALS: PAST & PRESENT

(Part 1 of a three-part series)

Most Americans appear to yawn when it comes to foreign policy.  One day that yawn may very well be their last gasp for air, as they inhale some lethal bacterial agent or as they are vaporized by the flash from a mushroom cloud above their home.

The act of a president engaging American troops in an undeclared war has become commonplace since World War II.  It is a reckless policy that, under Clinton, has accelerated and intensified to frightening proportions—and this policy has cost thousands of American lives since World War II.

Where are those liberals from the 60’s who were protesting our war against the communists in Vietnam?  Why aren’t they out in the streets protesting our incursions into countries ruled by tin-horned dictators of the so-called right, middle or left?

As long as one of their own—a liberal statist—is sending us into battle, it doesn’t seem to matter what the political stripe of our supposed enemy is.

We now have the president—not just Clinton, but any president—able to commit us to war, without you ever having a say about it.

In the case of Serbia, Clinton presented congressional leaders with a fait accompli: he had committed to military action, leaving Congress with little choice but to go along in the name of supporting our troops.  In fact, there was little, if any, advice and consent of the Congress in this matter.  Clinton, like a true dictator, had single-handedly invoked an action that could cost you your life, making Congress irrelevant and making you commit to a war without representation.

Taxation without representation is widely regarded as wrong, but war without representation apparently is not.

The consequences of the foregoing may be devastatingly frightful.

We are now routinely bombing Iraq, almost on a daily basis, with no apparent result other than to inflame hatred of America.  We have fired cruise missiles at supposed terrorists, in Afghanistan and Sudan, with no obvious result other than to make such terrorists all the more determined to lash out at America.  We have invaded Haiti, supposedly in the name of democracy, only to see a dictatorship firmly entrenched in this mystical nation.  We have invaded Somalia, allegedly for humanitarian reasons, only to have America retreat in humiliation, leaving the Somalians worse off than they were before our incursion into their country.

Now, we are bombing Serbia, involving ourselves in a civil war that does not threaten America—punishing the Serbs for doing what Sherman did to the South in his march to the sea when he burned crops and homes, sending thousands of women and children fleeing and seeking refuge.

Added to this mix are the recent, news reports—in no less than the New York Times (although first reported by WorldNetDaily)—that unforgivably lax security measures have permitted nuclear, missile and computer technology to fall into the hands of the likes of communist China and we have a noxious brew that is just waiting to explode in our face.  All of this technology is rapidly being transferred to such countries as North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and other known or potential enemies of America.

True enough, Congress recently approved the development of a missile defense system for this country, but this may prove to be too little too late.  Such a defense should have been developed years ago.  And the Clinton administration is now informing others that this system does not have to be deployed—apparently an effort to reassure our potential attackers that we will not defend ourselves.

Even with a missile defense system in place, our security measures have been so disgraceful that America is vulnerable to attack from within by bacterial agents and/or those so-called suitcase nuclear bombs.  For all any of us know, such devastating weapons are already on American soil—indeed, there are unconfirmed reports that this has already occurred.  Our military defense and our intelligence operations, under Clinton, have been so degraded, there is little reason to have confidence that they have been able to keep such means of mass destruction out of the country.

Ominously, we hear in the media dark warnings that it is not a question of if America will be the victim of some massive act of terrorism, it is only a question of when, as if to prepare us for what is to come.  If such an act of terrorism comes to us, then Clinton’s foreign policy and his near-emasculation of our military and intelligence systems will be the culprit largely responsible for a successful attack.

The ideals that should be guiding our foreign policy are completely foreign to our current crop of leaders.  To keep you, and America, out of harm’s way, we must adopt a radically new approach to foreign policy and defense.

What is the basic principle that should govern our foreign policy and our defense against our actual and/or potential enemies abroad?

For the answer, tune in next week for the second installment in this three-part series on foreign policy and defense.

Fulton Huxtable
March 29, 1999

© Copyright 1999 Fulton Huxtable
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