craigconsidinetcd.wordpress.com: In all likelihood, PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA will soon bomb Syria in the hope of dealing a blow to Syrian President BASHAR AL ASSAD’s regime. This dangerous act of war is a betrayal of the foreign policy vision of America’s founding fathers and will only serve to further weaken the US’s floundering moral credibility around the world.
For months now, President Obama has supplied military aid to factions of the Syrian rebellion, an act that, according to GEORGE WASHINGTON’S“Farewell Address,” is antithetical to American values. Speaking in 1796, Washington, who served as the first president of the US, advised future generations of Americans to stand clear of “foreign entangling alliances.” For Washington “our [Americans’] true policy [is] to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” President Obama’s commitment to the Syrian rebellion and the alliances that the US has etched with Israel and Saudi Arabia, two of Syria’s top rivals, means that the US government is now bogged down in foreign wars that Washington would not have approved of.
Moreover, in his “Farewell Address,” Washington added that Americans must take care “always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture.” Washington suggested that American foreign policy should only be of a defensive and not an aggressive or pre-emptive nature. Arguably, by intervening in Syria’s civil war, President Obama is ignoring Washington’s advice and repeating the mistakes of the Bush administration in aggressively invading foreign countries that pose little threat to the direct security of American citizens.
Categories: American History, Americas