.
Not many people think much
of the Obama foreign policy morass and for good reason if you look at what
happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya,
Yemen, Syria, Russia,
Ukraine,
and all the others I forgot.
However, my philosophy has
always been trust the people, not the politicians. Thus, Obama and congress continued to fight
over everything not important while the world awaits important decisions that
are important.
Well by now, we should
have learned a few lessons in foreign diplomacy. No one really tells the truth when
negotiating. No matter what we do, we
will figure out how to waste billions of dollars in defense and foreign aid
spending, our intervention will result in millions of refugees, sanctions
really do not work, and no one seems to be hearing the people impacted by the
policy decisions.
What to do?
How about we actually try
to reduce tensions, stabilize economies, protect homes and property of the
people of the world, make sure no more crises result from refugees, give kids a
permanent home and education, and make sure war is not part of so many people's
lives around the world.
Start by defusing what
should not be a crisis.
1. Lift
the sanctions on Cuba -
the people of Cuba
have been through enough. The
incorporation of the people of Cuba
into the American influence that can result from open borders and no sanctions
is far more likely to bring our people together, than actions by the
governments. The people of Cuba are a wonderful people as witnessed by the
Cubans already living in America.
2. Adopt
the Iran
nuclear agreement and drop the sanctions.
Once again the people of Iran
have always been wonderful friends and contributors to the American way of life
and the only way the shackles of outrageous practices under the guise of
religion can be broken is to immerse the people in exposure to alternatives in
lifestyle.
3. Stop
treating Russia
as the bad boy and acknowledge that our governments do not have to agree on
everything. For one, Crimea and a border
strip of land to Crimea from Russia
has always connected Russia
to Crimea.
Even the Ukraine
people know the pro-Russian influence of eastern parts of Russia. Give
Russia land access to Crimea.
Also, agree to let the Ukraine be an independent nation
without dictating government affiliations with the East or West. In this day of government over-reach in
monitoring everything from your phones to bedrooms, how could anything bad go
unnoticed in this viral age. We have the
ability to monitor everything, legally and illegally I might add, so use it for
a meaningful purpose like peace rather than just for national security and war.
While we are at it, get rid of the economic sanctions we
imposed on Russia.
The people of Russia hurt the most from these
financial sanctions, not the government, or the bankers. These people being hurt are the same ones victimized
after the fall of the Soviet Union when we went in and tried to establish democracy
in Russia.
There was no way a
democracy could work in a country ruled by czars for 1,000 years and Communism
for 75 years without years of slow development, but we shoved it down their
throats and then were shocked when it not only failed miserably, but nearly
bankrupted this new nation once freedom was established.
We may not like Putin but the Russian people do and we should listen to them and deal with Putin
as he holds the key to long-range action in Iran,
Syria, North Korea, and other world hot
spots. Obama claims to be the great
negotiator yet fails to negotiate with someone very important to the Middle
East, Asia, and even Europe.
4. Double
and triple our efforts to work with China. They hold more American debt than any other
nation, bank, or family. We share some
ideals with the emerging Chinese superpower like working for a better standard
of living for our people, improved environmental initiatives to clean the air,
water, and land, and the management of natural resources in responsible ways.
Does anyone think China does not
want to clean up pollution? It will cost
billions of dollars and millions of Chinese people need other help, yet the
huge clean up effort started and will continue.
In the meantime, China
is becoming one of the best trading partners of America.
Like America, China faces a long legacy of
corruption, corruption that must stop, involving the politicians, government
employees, contractors, the rich, the financial institutions, and foreign
governments. There is amazing progress
by President Xi Jinping in attacking this
problem, yet we have been quiet in supporting his efforts.
Instead, our government warms
of the emerging power of China,
frets over defensive moves by the rising nation, and blames China for every
cyber attack that takes place until investigations show they did not do it.
NO ONE has trampled over the
rights of people to privacy and freedom more than the United States
government. No one has the technology to
eavesdrop on every aspect of American life like our Intelligence agencies, and
thanks to Edward Snowden, the despicable acts of our government, in spying on
their own people, are public information.
We have no business as a
nation tossing accusations of cyber snooping on Russia
or China when the finger
should point at us, the United
States, who have routinely monitored every
government in the world legally and illegally for decades.
It takes a lot less money
to feed the hungry than to spy on our perceived adversaries. It takes a lot less money to help China clean up
their environment, which directly helps the world environment, than to
encourage the Asians to increase defense and intelligence spending to find out
what we are doing to them.
What ever happened to
common sense?
Why not devote a
generation to tearing down border restrictions, improving the quality of life
for everyone, eliminating hate-inspired sanctions, and helping people preserve
their cultural heritage rather than obliterate it.
Our priority should be
helping every young person in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe
find decent jobs rather than forcing them into terrorism for an
occupation. The investment would be far
cheaper than the multi-billion dollar cost of new and unnecessary weapons
systems or intelligence capabilities.
Let us work as hard to
bring down barriers between people as we did to build them.
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