American Interventionist Foreign Policy Should Be Abolished

Exclusive to STR

American politicians and media often speak of minor adjustments to U.S. foreign policy, yet they are always careful to avoid letting the general public hear any suggestion that interventionism should be entirely brought to an end. Some are willing to discuss the war in Iraq or other foreign policy characteristics, but the overall idea of intervening throughout the world to "protect our interests" is never questioned.

Some media outlets, quickly forgetting history, describe Iraq as " America 's first preemptive war." They build up countries like Iran , North Korea , and Syria as "threats to national security" and act as if the leaders of those countries are ready to drop atomic bombs on us at any minute. In reality, none of America 's "enemies" since World War II--including Korea , Vietnam , Panama , Nicaragua , Grenada , Iraq , Serbia , and others--have had any ability to pose a "threat" to the United States . Despite all of the fear-promoting propaganda, Russia and China have never been likely to "nuke" the U.S. , knowing that it would lead to an equivalent consequence for them. However, this hasn't curtailed the military's ability to spend trillions of taxpayers' dollars over the past several decades--supposedly to protect us from these "threats."

As if this weren't enough, the U.S. government sees fit to give away billions of tax dollars in "free" weapons to countries like Israel , Egypt , and Colombia . While the weapons may be "free" to those countries, they constitute great profits for weapons manufacturers and certainly aren't free for American taxpayers. Then it threatens to withdraw this "aid" from such countries if they consider purchasing weapons from other nations, as part of its attempt to monopolize the international weapons trade while accusing others of "weapons proliferation." Although the American politicians are glad to discuss cutting social programs for the poor, the elimination of these military social programs is never up for discussion. Perhaps the media's silence on this issue is revealed by the advertisements of Boeing, GE, and other military equipment manufacturers appearing on major television networks.

The other main component of American foreign policy is non-military "pressure" to overthrow governments the U.S. dislikes and "aid" to help pro-U.S. governments defeat rebel groups. In countries like Nepal , Colombia , and the Philippines , the U.S. designates rebel groups as "terrorists" and provides various types of non-humanitarian aid to their governments. The American media rarely discusses this or questions its necessity. Meanwhile, the State Department lectures other nations to hold "democratic" elections, but takes advantage of such elections to fund political parties to their liking. If this is not possible, it puts trade sanctions on "disobedient" countries and uses tax funds to broadcast radio propaganda into them. The government has wasted a great deal of tax dollars and worsened the image of Americans in the world by trying to use covert means to overthrow the governments of Belarus , Venezuela , Myanmar , Cuba , and other countries.

It is clear that this policy of worldwide intervention has achieved nothing but to waste incomprehensible sums of taxpayers' money, vastly enrich weapons manufacturers, and provoke dislike of Americans throughout the world. Unfortunately, the present media, political system, and parties are not capable of challenging this policy, thanks to the weapons manufacturers' "contributions" sitting in their pockets.