I came across this editorial about America's involvement in foreign conflicts on Google News while glancing at the headlines on the massacre in Mogadishu, where 1,086 are dead and more than 4,000 are wounded after clashes between "Ethiopian forces and Islamist fighters".
Excerpt from The Independent Institute's, "U.S.–Made Mess in Somalia":
Somalia is the third example of the United States creating a potentially anti–U.S. Islamist threat where none previously existed. The U.S.–supported Ethiopian invasion weakened the Somali Islamists, but they are still fighting fiercely for control of Mogadishu, the capital.
Like those in Iraq, all the Somali Islamists have to do is hang on until the foreign occupier gets exhausted and leaves. When that happens, the Islamists could very well become the dominant political force in the country, capitalizing on their “patriotic” resistance to the hated Ethiopian occupiers and their U.S. benefactors.
The author's point is that the US should remember its founding principles, one of which is that our nation should not meddle in the affairs and disputes of foreign nations, no matter how closely aligned we feel with their cause.
The reason our Founding Fathers took this stance is because they knew that if America placed itself in the middle of these disputes, it would become sucked into the quagmire of war and entangling treaties that had beset Europe.
These involvements would lead to an eventual loss of our personal liberty and national sovereignty over time, as our nation would come to resemble the meddlesome, warring tyrants we despised.
This is the very issue we face today. Given our foreign involvements and our military presence all over the world, it would seem we have become our Founding Fathers' (and the world's) worst nightmare. Is there a way to undo this mess?
Excerpt from The Independent Institute's, "U.S.–Made Mess in Somalia":
Somalia is the third example of the United States creating a potentially anti–U.S. Islamist threat where none previously existed. The U.S.–supported Ethiopian invasion weakened the Somali Islamists, but they are still fighting fiercely for control of Mogadishu, the capital.
Like those in Iraq, all the Somali Islamists have to do is hang on until the foreign occupier gets exhausted and leaves. When that happens, the Islamists could very well become the dominant political force in the country, capitalizing on their “patriotic” resistance to the hated Ethiopian occupiers and their U.S. benefactors.
The author's point is that the US should remember its founding principles, one of which is that our nation should not meddle in the affairs and disputes of foreign nations, no matter how closely aligned we feel with their cause.
The reason our Founding Fathers took this stance is because they knew that if America placed itself in the middle of these disputes, it would become sucked into the quagmire of war and entangling treaties that had beset Europe.
These involvements would lead to an eventual loss of our personal liberty and national sovereignty over time, as our nation would come to resemble the meddlesome, warring tyrants we despised.
This is the very issue we face today. Given our foreign involvements and our military presence all over the world, it would seem we have become our Founding Fathers' (and the world's) worst nightmare. Is there a way to undo this mess?