Smart Guys: Explain Foreign Policy

It isn't bad enough we have made the US a welfare state we now do it to any foreign country whether freind or foe. Why are we sending 100 million to Afghanistan? They're hungry? Hunger is a great incentive to overthrow your government. I'm pretty sure that if we had sent a few million to France and Russia during their revolutionary period the populace would have been well fed and they might have been able to tolerate the monarchy a bit more. But, no, they were hungry and saw the fat cats sitting and enjoying while they toiled and begged for scraps. So, they rebelled. They overthrew their governments and tried something else. Let the Afghans, the Palestinians, the Sudanese, the Iraqis and Pakistanis all go hungry for a while. Let's take care of the people who actually like us for us. When the Afghans get hungry enough they'll fork over Osama and every other threat to their "allowance". We have a tool let's use it.

Gee, yeah, let 'em starve, and hope only a few million die before they chuck out the Taliban. 1.5 million people have died already, what's a few million more? Let all those poor bastards starve. We can get rid of every rogue state just like that. Look at how well that policy is working in Iraq. I can just see all those malnutritioned kids running through mustard gas and anthrax spores going after Saddam with rocks right now.


The examples you brought up about France and Russia are especially telling. Especially in the instance of Russia. Russia has to be one of the worst cases of "blowback" of all time. Back when Karrensky was trying to fight the Bolsheviks and establish a democratic government in Russia, he asked for help from the Allies. The Allies (including the US), knowing that only the czarist government wanted to continue with the war effort, refused to support him against the Commies. You know what happens next right?


Here is the thing. If the US truly stands for democracy and justice internally AS WELL AS externally it has to come up with a morally consistent foreign policy. Otherwise, events like the WTC tragedy will continue to come up and bite it in the ass. It is true, you can not please anyone. You can not be all things to all countries. But the LEAST you can is support democracies over tyrrany, even if the tyrants have their lips firmly planted on your butt.


Here is an example. Back in the 50's Iran (surprise) had a fledgling constitutional democracy, under the premiership of Dr. Mossadeq. Mossadeq was a nationalist who wanted to end foreign intervention in Iranian affairs. When he tried to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, he REALLY pissed of the US and Britain. That was when the coup of the shah took place. Want to know who backed the coup? You guessed it the US and britain. The shah was a big time lackey of the West. His regime was a brutal one, and he helped destroy all opposition with his secret police force, SAVAK. Under the shah, people were known to literally "disappear off the streets". Well who comes to power next? Our good friend the Ayatollah Khomeini. And the rest, they say, is history.


Just a thought. I heard someone on the radio say that it would cost $40 billion a year to wipe out world poverty. THat is, provide proper infrastructure sanitation shelter and food to all the people in need of these things in the world. THat might sound like a lot, but when you consider that is what is allocated in the new weapons bill that has been proposed, it's really not that much.

You make some good arguments but I don't see how being well-fed prevents you from becoming evil.

In 1932-1933 Josef Stalin engineered a famine in the Ukraine which killed between 7-10 million people, according to some estimates. This was a deliberate attempt to subjugate and break the spirit of the people of the region.


In 1958-1961 China had what was probably the worst famine the world has ever seen (although this tragedy wasn't well-known to the world until may years later). This famine was a direct result of Mao's policies and methods of collectivization.


In neither of the above cases did the populace overthrow the govenment, although the government brutalized the populace through engineered famine.


Some populaces revolt; others can't or don't. What would happen in Afghanistan? I don't know either way.


Historically, terror is a tool utilized by governments to repress citizenry and maintain an iron grip on power.


Perhaps it is only fairly recently that most "terrorist organizations" have been something other than governments.

If you think that Afghanistan is our "foe" because their government has been seized by a band of fanatics that tolerate the presence of bin Laden somewhere in the mountains, then it is not true that the 9/11 attacks were utterly pointless. They convinced at least someone that the foreign policy of a state's leadership justifies treating the populace as the enemy.


At 0.0003% of the defense budget and 0.000008% of GDP, $100 million isn't exactly going to break the bank.


In a few months Afghanistan refugees won't be suffering from "hunger," they'll be dying of starvation. Hardly a recipe for rebellion.

100 million here 100 million there.


And maybe the people of Afghanistan are not our enemy, but certainly there are people in need around the globe who are our friends that could use 100 million dollars. There is squalor in appalachia, there are homeless sleeping on our streets, there are schools falling to pieces and a lack of qualified teachers in our schools. We have problems right here that are more immediate and certainly of a higher priority than trying to eliminate poverty and hunger in an area of the world that has known nothing but poverty and hunger.


They will take our food and take our medicine and then they will resent us for it. Give me a few examples of situations where we aided a country into the 20th century that wouldn't have gotten there by themselves. And spare me the Marshall plan recipients. Oh and on that list please eliminate the puppet regimes we have inserted to protect our interests.

You make some good arguments but I don't see how being well-fed prevents you from becoming evil.

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Because most "rogue states" come about when the populace is poor or hungry or some combination of the two. Instability, poverty and hunger allow fanatical and militant types to take advantage of the chaos and seize power.


I read some of what you wrote in a post further down, about terrorism still occurring in First World nations, like Japan and the UK. Credit for the Japan nerve gas attack was given to a cult. Japan does not actively harbor terrorists, which is what many of these "rogue" states do. As for the IRA in Northern Ireland, the UK certainly doesn't harbor them. Ireland does not harbor them. And the amount of damage the IRA actually does compared to its fame as an international terrorist group is small. Belfast has as many violent deaths in one year as Wichita, Kansas does. The point I'm really trying to make is that among the First World, there are zero states that knowingly harbor and protect terrorist groups.

SammyB asked for "smart guys" and he got what he asked for!


...Intelligent and hard-hitting post, Hetron.

"Because most "rogue states" come about when the populace is poor or hungry or some combination of the two. Instability, poverty and hunger allow fanatical and militant types to take advantage of the chaos and seize power."


And we're going to stop that by sending them food? I don't think so. Tell, me where this has worked.

You send them food so they don't starve to death. Because it's the right thing to do. I applaud President Bush for extending aid to Afghanistan because it's morally right. Besides, it is a good move if you are planning to build a coalition and show the people of the Middle East that you do not hate the people, only the terrorists and those who harbor them. Consider it analogous to a poker "advertising play".


If you want to really stabilize a place, you have to invest in it and build up the infrastructure. It requires a more of a commitment than just sending over food. But in the case of Western Europe and Japan after WWII, it worked quite well. Some of the eastern European countries are making the conversion to free market economies with the help of US aid, though Russia is admittedly lagging behind. A lot of these countries might prove to be great untapped markets, if you want to look at it that way.