Hypocrisy

No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, from anarco-vegan urbanite to gun toting religious zealot, we can all agree that lately the US has taken on the role of international enforcer. The power of the UN is waning, in large part due to our circumvention of its authority, and America seems to be the only entity able, and most importantly willing, to go around telling other equally sovereign nations what they should and should not be doing. It is up for debate whether or not this authority is legitimate, but it is clear at least that we wield it as if it were.

In just the six years since 2000 we have deployed troops for operations in Sierra Leone, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Cote d'Ivoire, Iraq, Liberia, Georgia, Djibouti, Haiti, and Pakistan. Troops are also not the only means of manifesting our assumed authority. Economic sanctions and embargoes are equally if not sometimes more effective than troop deployment in enforcing the will of the US on others. Currently the Balkans, Belarus, Burma, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe suffer from embargoes and/or sanction programs instituted by the US.

In light of our apparent “responsibility” to intervene on issues that are none of our business, my question becomes: why did our government choose last week, of all times, to back off? Once the scale of the current conflict between Israel and Lebanon was fully realized, people became very scared. Even nations who deeply resented the nature of our recent involvement in the international community looked to the US to do what needed to be done. At the very least we were expected to attempt to dissuade one side or another from what can only be described as full scale war between the two countries.

Instead they got a recommendation from our fearless leader to “limit as much as possible so-called collateral damage” with not even a suggestion to stop killing one another. For once, the entire world is worked up about a human rights issue that is not a direct result of US action (arguably), and we have a chance to partially redeem ourselves in the eyes of the world. Our ever-inspired government, however, thinks its more important to take this week to worry about the possibility of stem cell research.

Personally I do not think that the US should have any right to intervene independently on anything outside its borders and that international organizations such as the UN and NATO should be consulted if one were to so much as punch a Canadian in the arm. The reality, however, is that we don't live in the perfect world and those organizations are not exerting or receiving the kind of authority necessary to maintain international order. If the unfortunate truth of the matter is that the only country powerful enough to temporarily assume the enforcer position is us, than we have to worry about how we are going to be remembered.

In some ideal future if international law is enforced by the international community (what a wacky idea), are we going to be remembered as the country that stood up to the plate and got the world through a chaotic period, or are we going to be thought of as the despotic tyrant that ignored blatant atrocities to pursue our own interests? Unfortunately I feel like our actions in the last few years have solidified us as the latter.

Posted by Cliff Casey on July 20, 2006 at 04:39 pm EST

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