On Saturday, January 18, 2003, at 08:01 AM, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote:
John Kelsey wrote:
No policy toward anyone isn't possible once there's any kind of
contact. There are terrorists who'd want to do nasty things to us
for simply allowing global trade, or for allowing trade with
repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, or for selling
weapons to countries with bad human rights records. Osama Bin Laden
might not hate us, but *someone* would.
Baloney. The terrorists have made it pretty clear what their gripe
with the U.S. Government is, and it has nothing to do with trade, the
American lifestyle, or the elusive freedoms that Americans supposedly
enjoy. It has everything to do with US troops stationed in nearly
every country in the world (specifically, Saudi Arabia), meddling in
Middle Eastern conflicts (the never-ending Israeli-Arab feud), and the
steady stream of Arab corpses that Clinton and the Bushes have
produced over the last ten years or so (thousands of Afghani civilians
killed by US bombs in the last year or so; the bombing of Iraq that
has stretch uninterrupted from the beginning of the Persian Gulf War
to the present day).
Neutrality and noninterventionism work spectacularly well as a foreign
policy. Just take a look at Switzerland: seven centuries of peace and
freedom, with the exception of a few years
during the Napoleanic era, and never a problem with terrorists.
I agree completely with this. The 911 attackers would not have gotten
up the energy to attack over such a side issue as American consumerism
or godlessness or whatever. Those things just don't generate the hatred.
How about "Friendship and free trade with all, entangling alliances
with none," to quote Thomas Jefferson? A trade policy that doesn't
choose favorites avoids any problem of others wishing to influence
U.S. trade policy.
Exactly.
--Tim May
