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Reprint - The Tribune Papers - March 6, 2010
Sixty-five years after the fall of Berlin, America still has 100,000 troops in Europe. Fifty-seven years ago we surrendered half of Korea to China, Inc. We still don't have a peace agreement, but we do have a human shield of 30,000 of our troops as a form of political duck tape.
Across the world almost 400,000 U.S. troops are serving overseas. At the same time our government is spending two dollars for every one of revenue; accumulating trillions in debt, and pumping up a military budget that's doubled in less than a decade. This unsustainable web of U.S. twenty-first century foreign entanglements is a very specific betrayal of the conservative model of governance.
Conservatives are Careful with Other People's Lives
The impact of foreign adventurism is rarely absorbed by those who trigger the involvement. It is the heart, mind, body, and spirit of our nation's young that go into battle and take the blows.
If we are to send our children to fight it is crucial that clash be nothing less than essential. To do anything less is a betrayal of our adult responsibilities to protect our young versus serve them up to vanity exercises in foreign lands.
True conservatives value reason, reality, and history - all of which point to foreign entanglements as bad investments under almost all circumstances.
They're Called Entanglements for a Reason
Once the dogs of war are loosened, they are reluctant to return to the cage. The engagement of soldiers on foreign soil thus guarantees what military men call 'mission creep' - the incremental expansion of involvement to a point beyond original intentions.
Per description, foreign entanglements occur elsewhere. The differences in culture, language, climate, and values assure complexities that work against success and time. Americans like success, but want it quickly. Experience demonstrates there is no equation of war framed with the words fast, foreign, victorious, and secure.
The Arrogance of Fixing the Other Guy's Country
Some Americans relish our role as the world's policeman. Police work, whether on the streets of Washington or the streets of Bagdad, is dangerous. Pretending to be able to police a fallen world is lower level reason combined with higher level arrogance. America cannot secure its own borders from invaders. We cannot secure our communities from drug thugs. Yet we pretend we have the power to transform cultures far less functional than our own.
Conservative thinkers know that our most powerful tool of meaningful influence remains our example - not our weapons or our dollars. If America wants to fix the world, then we would do best to fix us first. Nothing produces world change like a beacon of success shining a bright message of hope, normalcy, and prosperity.
Solutions?
We add insult to injury by second guessing decisions once we have engaged. To throw troops into Iraq and Afghanistan and then change our mind when it gets tough is to betray those who have stepped forward.
We should learn from folly and not repeat our errors. Our adventure into Iraq was a betrayal of the 57,000+ Americans who died in Vietnam. That amount of blood should have, at a minimum, resulted in lessons lasting longer than a single generation.
If we do chose to go to war, it should be fought with our fullest energies and dedication to victory. We haven't done that since 1944. Yes - we surrendered to intimidation before that war ended and subsequently turned Poland and Eastern Europe over to the tyranny of communist Russia. Since then we have conducted a parade of inconclusive limited police actions that have ground up our young, our treasuries, and our Constitution.
If we find ourselves in situations where lethal force is necessary, twenty-first century airpower has the impact to send the proper message without putting boots on the ground. Taking out Sadam's palaces and military bases was an incremental and viable alternative to sending our troops into a sandy swamp holding fantasy WMD's.
Our Greatest Foreign Entanglement
Our international drug war is probably our most ridiculous foreign entanglement. We cannot stop marijuana as California's number one cash crop, but we propose to stop folks from producing cocaine in Columbia? We can't stop Mexico's mass importation of drugs and people across our own borders but we propose to stop poppy mischief on the lawless Pakistan and Afghanistan border?
The drug fight will be won or lost one community at a time - right here at home. That's where America's greatest energies belong - not in foreign places pulling us into their cultural messes; milking our treasury; and corrupting our people.
Military Madness versus Protecting America
At the same time that 20 million illegal aliens have invaded our borders, both political parties have participated in doubling our defense budget. This contradiction in priorities demonstrates a false patriotism fueled by power and money over more sincere priorities.
Political adventurism, out of control military budgets, indifference to our borders and laws, and foreign entanglements are not conservative missions. Too many of us who call ourselves conservative have sat back and pretended otherwise. In doing so we helped elect an inexperienced pretender as our Commander in Chief. Another example of how foreign entanglements always hold deadly and unforeseen consequence...
Dr. Carl Mumpower
www.thecandidconservative.com
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