The Issues, Part I: Foreign Policy

The first question people needs to ask when discussing foreign policy is, do I really understand what it is? Though many definitions exist, the simplest is often the most accurate. Foreign policy is how one sovereign interacts with another. Thomas Jefferson once stated that foreign policy is, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none." Let's start with that last part about alliances. 

Anyone can attest to the benefits of a good alliance; just recall the schoolyard playground. Bt what about the pacts made with someone or a group that ensnared you into tit-for-tat promises. Sometimes you were probably asked to do things you believed we're morally wrong, illegal, or otherwise unjust. That is where we are with foreign policy in the Union today. For instance, the United Nations has become a gutless, self-serving, and down-right unhelpful organization. The Union provides funding, troops, and time to their "causes", but to what benefit to her? What good has the united (that is intentionally lower case) States gotten out of the UN? They want control over our guns, our Internet, our children. There could be no good from laws governing Americans, but that are written by other nations. Of course, some will balk here, and they will cry about how the UN's food program has fed so many (false since in most cases rebels, militia, or other unintended recipients steal the food drops the minute they hit the ground), or they will reference other areas, none of which will prove their point. The UN has done so little good; in fact, NATO has done better.

The point here, is that "honest friendship with all nations" is difficult to achieve when you keep fighting wars in far off lands that are well past their objectives and national defense. Now that bin Laden is dead, which was the original intent of ENDURING FREEDOM, bring our troops home. Maintain a friendship with the nations necessary to facilitate growth and relations that will benefit the Union, but otherwise get out. That is the beginning of foreign policy, and I realize it does not delve as deeply as many would like. I just don't have that kind of writing time on my hands.