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Policing the World: A Costly Endeavor
22.9.2008
By Rauf Naqishbendi
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September 22, 2008
Since the disintegration of Soviet Union, the United
States has become an undisputed world superpower
fueled by its giant and powerful economy. However,
in the wake of an overstretched military and its
exuberant cost, it is questionable whether the U.S.
economy can support such in its current form.
Sustaining American supremacy mandates a powerful
military complex and thus entails great expenditures
beyond the means of the American government's
affordability. The defense budget already consumes a
good chunk of the total federal budget. |
Rauf Naqishbendi |
American leaders shy
away from confessing the empire buildup, yet they
burden the American people with the responsibility
of maintaining world peace under the banner of
national security.
The security of any nation is in peril when external
forces aim at intruding on its borders or targets
the heart of its territory with devastating
missiles. Even so, terrorists in Iraq and
Afghanistan, thousands of miles away from us, are no
more threat to us than to Europe,www.ekurd.net
and for that matter to
the rest of the world, in particular the countries
breeding them. Therefore, fighting Al-Qaida or the
Taliban is as incumbent on the rest of the world as
it is upon us. But it has become our problem more
than anyone else for we are policing and trying to
protect the world, not as a concerned or threatened
nation, but as a superpower with an empire to uphold
in our grip of control.
Since the end of WII, America has contributed to
world peace more than any other nation. The European
continent, which used to be a problematic region
where two world wars flared up within three decades,
has been pacified. Member countries are harmonious
politically and are economically united in their
prosperity. We managed to disarm Japan, another
troublesome country, and to obviate its
confrontations with others. With our help, Japan has
rendered itself an economic powerhouse. Suffice it
to say that economic prosperity, enjoyed by both
Europe and Japan, can be attributed to their lack of
costly defense expenditures. Remarkably, the world
has changed.
Unfortunately, although the problem spots of the
past are no longer a problem, new torrents of
violence by hideous secret societies are haunting
humanity and threatening world security. They are
hateful groups, more dangerous than any known to
mankind, terrorists aiming at inducing religious war
and dividing the world along the religion lines.
There needs to be a concerted effort by all nations
to fight these groups, particularly, the nations
among which these terrorists are breeding and
growing. This situation mandates a fight against
terrorism. As a superpower,www.ekurd.net
the U.S. should lead the
fight with a collective effort by every nation, but
not as it stands today, with the U.S. policing the
world against terror organizations alone, mostly
with American lives and American money.
The economic and political ramification of America´s
policing the world includes, first of all, a
tremendous cost. Securing world peace alone is, in
the short run, very expensive and burdensome to
America´s economy. In the long term, such a course
can be fatal to its economy should the current trend
to continue. The national debt keeps building up, as
does the interest on its debt, and we are becoming
the biggest debtor nation in a world. As a result
our currency has been devalued and inflation is
creeping up, resulting in a lower standard of living
and economic deterioration.
Second, the problem with maintaining an American
empire involves more than the military expense to
effectively maintain world peace. The U.S.
government has made concessions to other nations
inconsistent with its own national interest and the
economic well-being of its citizens. For example, to
prevent China from becoming a headache to their
neighbors and to world peace, the U.S. has helped
China improve living conditions so that freedom will
be promoted and, ultimately, they will end their
long-standing seclusion from the world. That
concession was made at the expense of millions of
American jobs exported to China as the U.S.
government relaxed all regulation regarding the
migration of American industries to China, despite
the fact that the Chinese establishment can be
hostile to us at some point
Third is the problem of bribing countries to gain
strategic locations for American military bases. For
example, Turkey, a welfare state, has been living on
American handouts for decades. The U.S. government
has provided a half-a-trillion dollar guaranteed
loan to Turkey so we can station our missiles in
their country. In doing so, our government has
turned a blind eye to the human rights abuses
committed by the Turks against Kurdish and Christian
minorities in Turkey, violating its moral
obligations. The loans to Turkey and many other
countries, which they have failed to pay back,
eventually have to be cleared from Washington´s
books and absorbed by American taxpayers. Since the
rise of Al-Qaida, the American government has been
buying friends with billions of dollars, money that
has been granted to presumed alliances strictly for
fighting terrorism. Unfortunately, some of our
"friends" have channeled the funds for purposes
other than the intended purposes.
Policing the world is a tremendous task that
requires befriending some, while alienating others.
Supremacy in power and prestige doesn´t go
unchallenged. A rogue regime, such as the Iranian
Mullahs, can be difficult to deal with. While we
gain gratitude from countries like Georgia and
Poland, our policies have been resented by major
European industrial nations, resulting in their lack
of willingness to actively participate in major
undertakings such as the war in Iraq.
Policing the world is carried out mainly by America
and is sponsored by hard-earned American taxpayers´
money. Although the next president must address this
problem, neither of the two candidates has.
Nevertheless, both candidates have made a commitment
to provide leadership in order to restore American
respectability in our world. The world has received
our services free for a long time,www.ekurd.net
and it is not easy to
suddenly have to share the burden, especially when
our reputation has been spoiled so badly that there
is no nimble way to timely repair it. In the
meantime, we will have to carry the burden and pay
the cost, but for how long?
Rauf Naqishbendi is a contributing columnist for
Kurdish Websites, American Chronicle and has written
Op/Ed pages for the Los Angeles Times. He has just
completed his memoirs entitled "The Garden Of The
Poets" which reads as a novel depicting his
experience and the subsequent 1988 bombing of his
hometown with chemical and biological weapons by
Saddam Hussein. It is the story of his people's
suffering. Rauf Naqishbendi is a software engineer
in San Francisco Bay Area.
The contents of this article reflect the author's
personal opinions, and we accept no responsibility
for the views or opinions expressed in the articles
either direct or indirect.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
americanchronicle com
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