American Arrogance

Obama's recent speech in Cairo was heralded as a massively progressive speech. It was lambasted by some right wing pundits as "going to far" to appease Muslims. It was about as far left as our foreign image has ever gone. So what's my problem with the speech? It was full of justifications for America's old, archaic, hypocritical and unfair ideas in the realm of foreign policy. In other words, it was still too conservative.

Picture for a second that China-a monstrous foreign power, invades both Canada and Mexico. Soon the saber rattling begins in the direction of the United States almost daily. Our country takes in more than 2 million refugees, many wounded and in poverty. Imagine we had the ability to develop a super weapon as a deterrent to an imminent Chinese invasion. Would that be justifiable?

I argue that it would. And that's exactly what Iran is doing. They are surrounded by two war zones, are being constantly threatened by the United States, and have had an influx of displaced Iraqis enter their country. Seeing that Iran's history with the U.S is rocky at best, and considering the U.S has the largest nuclear stockpile on Earth, Iran has every right to develop a nuclear weapon. Mahmoud Ahmedinijad may be a bit much, but he has no power in the Iranian government (contrary to popular belief). The Ayatollah has the final say on all matters so you can bet any nuke would be used only as a deterrent.

Secondly, we continue to side with Israel no matter what-a position completely bankrupt of rational thought. Israel is a terrorist state. It spends more money on its military than the rest of the Middle East combined. It may come as no surprise that it buys its weapons from American contractors, so it becomes pretty obvious why America supports Israel-it provides a ton of profit to our military industry. For every 3 deaths in the Israeli military, 12 Palestinian civilians die. This is what the World Court calls a War Crime. Israel bombs schools and hospitals in blatant acts of aggression. Meanwhile, the American media decries Hamas-one of the biggest governing bodies of Palestine, as a terrorist organization despite the fact that Hamas was democratically elected and provides free education, health care, and unemployment benefits to its citizens. Meanwhile Israel is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict really remains a religious dispute between Islam and Judaism. Ultimately it is a battle of whose invisible sky daddy is better. Taking the side of Israel is irresponsible, immoral and dangerous, and a foreign policy decision that should be changed.