Sunday, December 6, 2009

Global Cooperation, Not Global Responsibility
  Foreign Policy piece by James T. Moore

There is something very terrible going on in our country today, and we, as concerned Americans, have the power and the duty to stop it as quickly as possible.

What is going wrong is our current infatuation with the phrase “global responsibility”, which at best is a patronizing whitewash, and at worst, a dangerous political error of huge proportions.

Global responsibility, a concept in which neo-conservatives, New World Order advocates, and others of like mind give allegiance to. They mistakenly believe that it is America’s duty, even obligation, to assume responsibility for purging the world of all its ills: dictators, pogroms, terrorists, uprisings, illegitimate elections, corruption in high places, and the cost, misery, grief, and horrors of war itself.

Discussing America’s current agenda of global responsibility, even our friends in foreign governments must at times think: “The United States is at it again—announcing that it is taking personal responsibility for what happens on our side of the world as well as their own. What do they think they are, some kind Universal Guru?”

It completely escapes most of us that we have enough of our own problems without playing nursemaid or disciplinarian to all the nations on this planet. When in reality we have neither the wherewithall, the authority, the inclination, nor the obligation to do so. In short, we have taken our commonsense foreign policy of neighborliness, trade, and humanitarian aid and turned into a precarious international charade.

We have ignored the fact that our world is filled with a plethora of disparate cultures, races, languages, customs, borders, traditions and histories. And for America to arbitrarily assume responsibility for a “remake” or “regime change” on how that nation conducts its foreign affairs is not only unwanted interference in its business, but the height of arrogance on our part.

Global cooperation, not global responsibility. No doubt that was in the mind of President George Washington when he gave his Farewell Address to the American people: “The great rules of conduct,” Washington said, “for us in regard to foreign nations is—-in extending our commercial relations—-to have with them as little political connection as possible.”

Washington then gave us three rules to follow as a new nation: “First, we would engage in mutually beneficial commercial commerce with the rest of the world—-but “forcing nothing’. Second, while trading with them, we would avoid entanglements in their political affairs and their quarrels with other nations. Finally, we would always remain strong to defend ourselves from attack.”

This is not to say that America would not assist in a cooperative, multi-national effort to deal with problems of a planetary nature that may affect us all.  We would, however, adhere to our founding principle of global cooperation, and eschew global responsibility, which inevitably results in an infringement on the sovereignty of nation’s, and is not in keeping with America’s founding documents.

When George Washington gave his Farewell address on September 17, l797,—emphasizing global cooperation, not global responsibility - American took his words as food for thought. Two centuries later American seems to be in the process of making the General eat his words.

James T. Moore

Posted by James T. Moore on 12/6/09

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