Does it benefit the United States to continue to take the lead in international affairs? In your opinion, why does the U.S. often take the initiative when we perceive or learn of a problem another country is having? Eldridge (11:00)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
22 comments:
I believe that the US should mine their own business and country affairs. We seem to always jump to rescue other nations when our own country needs help in monitoring these street gangs, if the troops that are sent to other countries to help were out on our streets to lessen the violence there would be alot less crime in the US.
Shannon Adams
To a degree the US shouldnt interefere with other countries issues unless its absolutely nessessary. The reason is a country needs to grow on its own through trial and error. its like an adult forcing a new born to read and write the moment its born. The US needs to stand aside and watch other countries devolep. Not many people realize this, but the US grew without intereince of other countries to become the nation it is now.
Rocky V.
I guess it depends on what you mean by benefit. Helping others sure doesn't benefit us financially, not when we have many programs that need funding and many problems of our own to be addressed. But I think our country DOES benefit when we step in to lend a hand to countries hurting in a variety of ways, such as Japan (tsunami), Libya (civil war), Haiti (earthquake), Afghanistan and Iraq (general oppression), and others, such as Somalia, Eritrea--the list goes on and on, I know, but if the U.S., the strongest and most civilized and powerful country in the world (sorry Canada--you're more civilized, but not as powerful--same for you Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Norway), if we ignore the need of others, then who is going to help these people?
We are in a GLOBAL community now, a global economy--everything is tied in, so if we let others suffer we end up hurting ourselves in the future. Yes, it would be great to do as Shannon suggests and spend all our money on making our own country safer, but we can't forsake our brothers and sisters overseas. As bad as things sometimes seem here in the U.S. (and I KNOW, they do seem bad, very bad, sometimes), we still have it made compared to people living almost anywhere else in the world. It's only right that we share our vast resources when it comes to feeding others; it's only right that we use force to cease the bullying and killing that some leaders perform on their own people. I think the United States benefits from helping, also, because the thugs running other countries will know that we WILL step in and take action, if necessary. We're not going to make the mistake we made with Hitler again (I hope!).
James Burke
When it comes to other countries needing help to rebuild from disasters (like Japan) i think we should step up and help as the "friendly" country we are. When it comes to other countries waging wars within themselves or with others, the US needs to stay out of it. We have enough problems on our own turf that get neglected because the US is too busy worrying about fighting everyone else's wars.
Melinda
the u.s should most definialty take initiative when it comes to other countries because we are a country that has our freedoms and would hate for it to be taken away,so we shouldnt want any one to be bother with those kinds of treatments
dea shanay
I think that since the United States is able to help other places, they should. I do feel like sometimes we get into places that do not want our help though. I think that we should help other places with natural disasters and with wars that could effect us. We have to look out for ourselves, that is the most important thing. Financially, we are not benefitting from helping most places but we are benefiting because we gain allies and we are also helping people by giving them a "better" life than what they would have.
Morgan Russian
I believe in the long run, the United States will benefit from leading a hand in international affairs; also it is the right thing to do. Before the United States gets involved, there is normally a lot death and terrible things happening to good people. It may not seem like the smarted choice for the U.S. to get involved but if we don’t step in to help it will get a lot worse and a lot harder to overcome later on. Put yourself in the shoes of the people we try and help, most of them are helpless and are praying for someone to help them. We have also seen that if we don’t step in to help more often than not no one else will either. We have built a reputation of being a big brother, always trying to help countries and people who are in need of help. I feel that if the U.S. didn’t step in as much as they have and continue to do the world would be a worse place than it already is. It is in everyone’s best interest to lend a helping hand whenever needed.
Alex K.
I personally believe that the U.S. gets involved with everyone else's business because they want to look like the "good guy." Anytime we are in need of help and another country offers to hellp we decline them. I think we do that because we want to be able to fix everything on our own. We do not want to rely on someone else to get us out of a situation. This kind of thinking is not the best because it may make others feel as if they are not good enough to help the USA.
Darci (11:00)
I could probably go two ways on this because we should go out and help other countries when they are in the time of need. On the other hand, we do have a lot of issues here on the home front. I think it is good that we help the other countries out because we would want the other countries to help us if we had a large disaster like Japan did. We also want to take care of the problems while they are on foreign lands instead of waiting until they are in America. As for here in America we do have a lot of problems like the Mexican drug cartel. It is a problem that is causing many lives to end in our backyard.
Clayton B.(11:00)
I don't think we should take the lead in international affairs. I don't think so because even though we are a powerful nation I don't feel that we should be putting our noses in other countries buisness all the time. We have problem of our own in this country now and we can focus more on getting people jobs and getting our economy in order. When you try helping other countries all the time we waste money that could be going to our economy to other countries that are giving nothing back in return. When 9/11 happened no countries came to our aid, let our problems be ours and their problems be theirs.
-jake rone-
This is a hard question to answer.
If the US stays out of foreign conflicts, there are a number of possible negative outcomes:
•The US may be morally responsible for evils that happen to people if it stands by and watches. An example of this is the Rwandan genocide.
•The US would be unable to affect what foreign countries do and those countries' actions might end up hurting US interests. An example here would be how ignoring Afghanistan led to the growth of Al-Qaeda in that country.
If the US does get involved, there are also potentially negative impacts:
•We make other people hate us for meddling in their affairs.
•It costs us a lot of money
•Americans die
Chance Butler
At this point in world history and affairs, the United States does not have the option to return to isolationism. Consider the following:
The US economy represents nearly 1/5th of the entire world's business transactions in dollar value. With the need we have for resources abroad, the degree of trade we have with nations such as China, and the products we depend on that are manufactured elsewhere, it is a necessity that our government engage the rest of the world in daily affairs.
In the 1930's, during the Great Depression, when we were largely self sufficient in resources and our population was 1/3 of what it is today, it was possible and more convenient to stay out of world affairs.
Greg Jones
LIke most of the posts you've already received have indicated, this question is not easily answered. Imagine if no one from the USA had not stepped up for poor Haiti?
So many things that the US does overseas could be done better, but the problem is, many people in other countries don't think we know everything like we do. When people in the USA concede that what we think needs to be done isn't always what should be done, the world will begin to get along a little better.
We are viewed as spoiled know-it-alls in many areas of the world. Just because we are used to better technology (in many cases) and the resources/means to solve problems doesn't mean the way we would solve the problem is the best way. There are many things we can't begin to understand about culture, religion, and other factors of countries around the world which more often than not complicate issues.
On the other hand, if we don't step in, problems often become more complicated. Issues of human rights, terrorism, or world economics which effect us in the US cause us to get involved.
Mike Johnson
The United States is the largest and oldest democratic nation on earth. Our guiding principles are based on the understanding of the rights for all humanity. That being said we have a responsibility to step in and lend aid when humanitarian rights are at stake. Hopefully, we have politicians guiding this process so that we don’t lose sight of our humanitarian obligation in place of personal political agendas, but just as the United States has and continues to be a refuge, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” we have and should continue to be a guardian.
Frank Wilcast
The largest industry in the USA is the Military Industrial Complex. It's become a danger to America and to the world.
I see no reason for us to have bases all over the world and to insist on being the policemen of the world. If the Iraqis want to kill each other, let them. We don't need to stick our noses in everyone's business. We can take care of ourselves just fine without having to lower our standards and make nice with the likes of China, India, Turkey, Iraq or Saudi Arabia. Those countries are beneath us and we bend over backward to accommodate them at the expense of American jobs and more importantly, American lives.
Joanne Grierson
I think it both benefits and hurts the us when they take the lead in international affairs. It can benefit us by making good relationships with other countries and helping one another when they need it. It becomes a problem when we are taking initiative in international affairs when the other country dose not want us to. We need sit back sometimes and just let other countries run their country the way that they would like too. I think the US takes initiative because we want to show our power and our ability to help other countries.
Brett Scott (11:00)
I think that the U.S. should take care of their own problems before they go and try to fix others, and let them figure ways out to fix their problems and if they need a helping hand then they would call the US and we'd help, but that would be the absolute last thing. When it comes to natural disasters, tsunamis or earthquakes I think that's when we could go over and help to show that we're "friendly" and there to help, other than that we should mind our own business.
~Lauren (11:00)
Yes i believe its a huge benefit, because if they have a resource we dont have they might feel obligated to give us some, or possiblly lend us a hand in something.In my oppinion we should always have a good relationship with the others,we might learn something from thier errors. I think that we might take the initiative because someone else's economy might affect ours, and because we tend to be more wealthier then the others.
cgonzz (11:00)
The United States should not get into other countries internal buisness, but i feel if that country some how could become a threat to the American people then its a good cause. But Possibly the government should focus on some of it's own problems first, like Drugs,gangs, and child abuse issues. On the other hand if other people experienced disaster like Japans Tsunami,when it's safe we could help with the clean up.
R Hall just posted that one.
Currently, the United States is a world leader in many things. Often this makes other countries feel that we should help. While this is sometimes unfair, I feel that it is currently our duty to help those less fortunate. We often intervene in things that we maybe should not, especially with recent events in the Middle East, but if we did not help out in the world, we would recieve even more critism than we do now.
Landon W 11:00
We have the right to, if the counrty in help asks for it. Like in World War 2, our country, became one of the top countries in the world. That's one of the reasons it's better to live in the U.S. because war got us here, besides all of the inventions, etc. But with war, there will be citizens who will be angry, and tell us to get out of their problems, and go somewhere else. Which is why we have some terrorists, because their angry for us butting into their wars, etc.
Daniel (1:00)
Post a Comment