Recently, Luke posted about a movie called Hotel Rwanda, and I remarked on his post. In the essay, Luke stated:
We are responsible, yet we do nothing. We talk of freedom from oppression, about the unalienable rights of man. We claim to be just, but we do nothing. We intervene, protect, nation-build where our interest is best served, where a prize is to be had. The suffering and squalor of the rest, unluckily born to a nation low in natural resources or strategic military value, is placed on exhibit nightly, to be browsed and digested, mined for all its shock and fear and then to be forgotten, as though merely having heard about such things is its own kind of heroism.
Over on Sushicam, Jeff incited a debate with his post concerning the Alaska oil drilling (the last bit of the entry). In the comments on that post, Kryn stated:
If the US would not hold an agressive role towards some countries/factions and tell them what’s wrong and what’s right, they wouldn’t oppose the US so much and the US would therefore not have the need to wage war on those countries/factions. Please consider who started it, and don’t say “they did by not being democratic according to the American way” because it doesn’t roll. The US should just stop interfering with countries and enforce them a different policy. The only REAL reason that the US enforces their policy is because their administration is power hungry and comprises mostly countrol freaks. You already confirm this point by regarding China and Russia as potential enemies. They are no threat to the US, they just want to be left alone and deal with their internal affairs themselves, without the US bullying them and interfering. The US simply does not have that right. It is that attitude that will result in WW3. Where did Iraq actually start? Because the US didn’t approve of Iran’s ways, so they installed Saddam Hussein (yes, the US put Saddam in power and provided him with financial aid and weapons in the first place). Why did the US lost the Vietnam war? because they interfered with someone’s internal affairs. He is not the only dictator put in place by the US. The US had no business there. If they want to be communists, let them, they’ll find out themselves: How do you most effectively teach a small kid that a bowling kettle is hot? By not stoping it when it wants to touch it. It gets burned and it learned a valuable lesson. Unfortunately the US doesn’t seem to learn from its mistakes. STop interfering and the terrorist attacks will stop as well. The same happens with european countries. We get aggressive tones and threats when we interfere with others. when we don’t there is no problem. Can you explain? ANother thing, is why does the US always complain about countries having nuclear power and weapons of mass destruction? Why does the US always want to remove those with force? It is hypocritic, because the US is the number one when it comes to the possession of nuclear armaments, biochemical weapons of mass destruction. How can the US tell others off for it when they have the largest capacity in these monstrosities?
Here are two opinions censuring American society for completely different reasons. The first states that wrong is wrong, and we should put at stop to wrong when we see it, regardless of where it occurs. The second states that countries are sovereign, that no one has the right to impose their culture on others.
I feel, oddly, like both of them are right.
This is why I have such a hard time making decisions concerning politics.
I guess the only thing we can do is make choices on a case-to-case basis, and hope we are doing the right thing–that our elected officials are doing the right thing. In the Information Age, the prospect of weighing every single thing that happens between countries is overwhelming, but it’s really the only way to be fair. I don’t think we can make a hard and fast rule of non-interference or total interference.