Once
again the United States finds itself facing a crisis in another part of the
world and confronting the decision as to the degree, if any, of our
involvement. I am not an isolationist;
in fact, I have often supported military intervention by our nations in foreign:
conflicts the Korean War, the invasion of Grenada (by Reagan), the Gulf War to
liberate Kuwait, and the bombing campaign to stop the genocide in Kosovo, and
the Libyan air intervention to assist the rebels in overthrowing Qaddafi. I also supported aid to democratic forces
seeking to oust Assad in Syria and I believe that our failure to aid those
indigenous rebels opened the way for the takeover of that revolution by ultra
extremists who now have declared an Islamic Caliphate and apparently oppose the
Iraqi Shiite regime, the Iranian - Syrian - Lebanese (Hezbollah) alliance and
evidently Russia as well as possibly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
The
United States of course should always protect its territory and its people and
their security and our national interests even to the point of military action.
We do
not belong in the middle of an intra-Muslim theologically based and culturally
based civil war between Shia and Sunni.
While we should not in any way condone the barbarity of the Islamic
State (ISIS) we should not be perceived in the Muslim world as opposing a Sunni
radicalism and not a Shia radicalism.
After
our invasion of Iraq in 2013 which I publicly opposed that nation devolved into
three parts - even if only de facto: a Shiite section which dominated the
nation; a Sunni minority and a Kurdish region in the northeast. The United States always opposed any effort
by the peoples of those regions to seek their own countries and became the
defender of the territorial integrity of Iraq - a territory created by Winston
Churchill (he drew the map in 1921) out of three provinces of the Ottoman
Empire (a Shia, a Sunni and a Kurd region).
A
similar situation is developing in Afghanistan which threatens to divide into a
Pashtun majority area, which the Taliban may take control of, and a Tajik area
in the north of that state (which was the base of the anti Soviet and anti
Taliban forces). We do not belong in the
middle of that conflict either.
Our
use of military force should be limited to defending our national interest and
any ratified treaty obligations (such as NATO) and clear instances when nations
which share our democratic values and have shown decades of friendship to our
people are threatened (e.g Israel and Jordan). We should not be sending
American men and women to fight in intra national disputes nor in civil wars
Before
our involvement anywhere in the world goes beyond diplomacy and economic
sanctions we should observe certain cautions:
First)
We have no obligation to defend the territorial integrity of states whose
boundaries were established by European colonial powers. We should judge the integrity of a state by
the ability of that state to represent a population that considers itself a
nation. (In the failed state of Somalia we have opposed the independence of the
former British Somaliland which has now held three successive democratic
elections over a fifteen year period and has remained at peace with unity among
the various tribal clans. Once again we are shortsighted for no apparent reason
than our opposition to secession (we took the same position in Yugoslavia as
that nation divided into seven separate states which we reluctantly accepted each
time after a few years of opposition.)
Second)
We should never intervene in a genuine civil war based on religious or cultural
divisions unless there is a clear threat to the security of our nation.
Third)
We should support popular democratic revolutions with military aid (not troops)
early and use our other weapons - diplomatic and economic
and even
air power, to make certain the democratic forces win and the revolutions are
not hijacked by extremists.
President
Obama handled Libya the right way with air support to indigenous rebels who
were then successful. He flubbed it in Syria.
He was right to end the Iraq War and should fully disengage from Afghanistan. Obama must not allow our nation be re-involved
in Iraq. Already from a reputed 200
troops/advisers within three days the number had become 750. That number must not increase and we should
evacuate the multi -billion dollar embassy compound we built in Baghdad (a
larger geographic area than the Vatican City state). Americans have been coming home from Iraq and
Afghanistan under this President now it behooves him to allow our men and women
in uniform to Stay Home.
9 July
2014
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