Our Failed Foreign Policy

[JohnnyCougar]

Today was the perfect opportunity for the United States to reach out to a region that has been drifting away from us for quite some time now. But to no one’s surprise, unfortunately, we gave them a good ol’ shove to the ground. Instead of supporting condemnations of Columbia's act of war coming from a multitude of Central and South American countries, the US decided to stand on its own and blatantly throw its weight behind an unprovoked act of war. Not a single country in the region expressed its support for Columbia’s irresponsible and reprehensible actions yesterday. Conducting military strikes within another country’s borders without provocation or authorization is now obviously a policy that the US supports.

The actions and intentions of the US are becoming increasingly transparent around the world, except to the people within its borders. Sadly, our media are only adding to the problem. A quick glance at the headlines of yesterday gave numerous accounts of the ever ominous Hugo Chavez mobilizing troops to the Columbian-Venezuelan border, supplemented by the usual ensuing hatred and misdirection that routinely follows. Stories all over the media cast Chavez as the aggressor and menace, while it was Colombia that initiated unprovoked acts of war. Were Mexico to unexpectedly send air strikes into Canada, it would only be natural for the United States to ready its own troops to protect its borders from a rogue, bordering nation that seems intent on attacking wherever they please.

Today’s rhetoric from the White House followed the media’s suit with an easily recognizable theme: political allies come first and foremost, at the expense of international justice. We will support our friends no matter what they do, and we will economically terrorize our opponents no matter what they do. We only recognize democracies that elect people that we like, and we attempt to overthrow those that do not benefit us.

At some points, obviously, it is necessary to fight our enemies head on and defend our country from threats. But when our military and political clout become less about defending our country and promoting democracy, and more about bullying regions of the world to kowtow to our economic interests, people start to get turned off to our ideas and our political allies. While our selfish actions around the world community are disguised to our own citizens by a complacent media whose greatest skills are following the leader and blaming our nation’s problems on something else other than our own, failed foreign policy – the rest of the world is less easily fooled. This couldn’t be more apparent in Central and South America.

In order to get an objective look at the South American situation, especially in regards to Venezuela, one must look past the traditional media’s hype and try to look at facts and events alone. Hugo Chavez, despite being painted as a despot and a dictator, is actually the popular, elected president of Venezuela. Any attempt to paint him as something else is burying your head in the sand, covering your ears, and loudly humming the melody to God Bless America to drown out any other sound that might try to sneak its way in. According to the latest Latinobarómetro poll, a yearly, independent public opinion survey, Venezuela garnered the second highest rating regarding satisfaction with their democracy in the entire South and Central American region. Clearly, they aren’t concerned about their President being a dictator. The number of Venezuelans satisfied with their democracy (nearly 60%) has almost doubled since Chavez was first elected in 1998.

But wait, I thought the Venezuelan economy was in shambles, the country was corrupt, there is crime everywhere, and that Hugo took over all the airwaves? The Venezuelan economy has its problems, for sure, but unemployment reached an all time low just this last January, according to a recent report by Bloomberg news. Inflation continues to be high, but it’s nothing surprising given Venezuela’s developing nature, and the problems that Hugo himself inherited. Consumer spending in Venezuela is at an all-time high, and millions of people are getting healthcare and education for the first time in their lives thanks to diverted oil revenues that used to go straight into the pockets of foreign oil companies, leaving up to 80% of the Venezuelan population living in poverty. But companies like Exxon Mobil don’t want to hear those poor people’s sob stories. They think that oil should be theirs – free for the taking.

The important thing is, the Venezuelan citizens like and support Hugo Chavez. When the Venezuelan right-wing attempted to overthrow their democracy in 2002 in a coup attempt that the US publicly supported, Chavez’s supporters came storming into Caracas, demanding that he be returned to power. The people from Venezuela were driven from the US not by Hugo Chavez, and not by propaganda. They are not stupid, dimwitted buffoons lulled by the message of Hugo’s television broadcasts. They were driven from the US by the US itself. Putting US and business interests first in Central and South America has been a catastrophic failure for the majority of this region. It means meddling in South and Central American democracies. It means corrupt US corporations and their allies skirting tax laws and manipulating the media. The US can only blame its own irresponsible behavior in this region for driving its citizens to the left, away from American-style capitalism.

But this familiar theme is only further reflected in our failed foreign policy in the Middle East. Starting an unprovoked war in Iraq that has led to mass destruction over there has hardly turned the US into the liberating hero that only our own citizens see us as. Instead, we have had to resort to bribing our enemies in Iraq not to provoke violence – and that is only partially working.

The problem with our country’s actions is that “Schoolyard Bully” is not a foreign policy. We’re past the point where we can threaten people into liking us. Yet this is continually the path that our country takes when dealing with international problems. This was apparent from day one with the Bush Administration, when it had a confrontational attitude with China over Taiwan. From then on, the US has tried to beleaguer and browbeat other countries into supporting us militarily, politically, and economically. But this is hardly good for America’s image and influence throughout the world, and it is setting us up for failure in the future. Aside from adding to our massive budget deficit, the Iraq war has only validated beliefs around the world that the US is the number one threat to peace and stability on the global stage. That’s right. The rest of the world fears us more than they fear the terrorists. But that’s nothing new to people who regularly read international opinion polls.

Problem-solving in business does not usually involve a blatant pissing contest. People are turned off by argumentative, egotistical leaders. They want people who are calm, rational decision makers that are unbiased, and able to rise above their emotional insecurities to make a data-driven decision. Nobody wants to work with a cowboy who shoots first and asks questions later. Those are the people that usually screw things up, leave, and let someone else clean up the mess. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that when America uses the “might makes right” philosophy regarding foreign relations, that people are going to be turned away. With South America mostly drifting towards the left, Iran gaining influence rapidly in Iraq, and Europe becoming more and more independent of the US economy every day, it’s time for the US to stop for a minute and analyze the effectiveness of its foreign policy.

If the country that spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined decided to spend half the time, attention and resources on itself that it spends beyond its borders, we wouldn’t have to rely on a costly, combative foreign policy to keep ourselves afloat. Businesses that fail to be objective an introspective are bound for failure. Any marriage that relies on defensiveness and combativeness will never succeed. It’s time to focus on our own ship, to focus on our own problems, inefficiencies, and inequalities before we go on casting the first stone. If we don’t, we’re bound to go the way of the Roman Empire and the Soviet Union – meddling in and overextending ourselves on projects beyond our borders while the core of our country collapses under the weight of its own selfishness, corruption and skullduggery. Let’s focus on our country’s crippling oil addiction, our crumbling schools, and our mismanaged healthcare system instead of trying to wage costly wars and engage in immoral diplomacy intended to serve as a temporary patch for our country’s problems. It’s long past time for America to look for permanent solutions rather than quick fixes to its problems. And this involves everyone taking a good look at themselves and seeing what they can do for this country, and what responsibilities they have shirked, instead of pointing the finger at somebody else, or ignoring our problems in the hopes that they will go away in the morning. Liberals can’t blame conservatives, and conservatives can’t blame liberals anymore. We all have to blame ourselves.

United States citizens and its media can either begin to openly and honestly challenge our country’s own policies, or we can continue to bury our respective heads in the morass of our government’s own malarkey. After all, the people and the media are supposed to guide and direct our government, instead of blindly following what it wants you to think. If we are afraid to criticize our own government’s policies and viewpoints, than what did our ancestors declare independence for?

It’s high time for us to start questioning our foreign policy strategy. Today’s statements by the White House regarding the situation between Columbia and Ecuador, and subsequently Venezuela – coupled with the compliant, herd mentality of our media – show that instead of being ready to admit that we are wrong and trying to change our course, we’re more than ready to clutch on to our pride with our last gasp and go down with the ship.