In every situation that deals with foreign policy, the circumstances for the need of aid are different. This causes people to have differing opinions about the type of aid that should be provided to countries individually. Because of this, I feel that the argument over what the role of the U.S. should be as the global superpower centers around what values the U.S. should promote in other countries, and what tactics should be used to mandate these ideals.
In order for polarized sides to find a common ground, it is important for these sides to realize the difference between realistic and idealistic goals that can be accomplished as a super power. What is also important for opposing sides to realize is that the issues that the U.S. is trying to solve are at such a large scale that all plans and situations have sacrifices. Both opinions must also be open to listening to the reasons for the opposite sides opinions.
I think that this issue has become such a contentious issue because people will always want to help change the world. This belief, coupled with the amount of power that the U.S. has, causes citizens to feel strongly about helping others. The problem is that not everybody agrees on how the world should be changed. What also makes the situation so contentious is the deep feelings that people have surrounding their opinion of the value of life, and if lessening suffering in other countries is worth sacrifice in our country and the deaths of fellow citizens.
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UltraMega, I completely agree with you in that the U.S. cannot afford to help everyone and that we can only help to a certain extent. However, how do you believe the U.S. should choose which countries to provide aid to? Because some of these issues are connected to emotions, how to you think the U.S. could deal with these matters in an objective manner?
ReplyDeleteThank you cuba2miami for bringing up these questions. The questions that you ask are some of the main reasons that I chose to research this topic. Your correct in asking, how do we choose who to help? This is a topic which everyone makes a personal decision on regarding which countries should be helped and what is the correct way to help a country. Personally, before I started writing I believed that more pacifistic manners of help should be used. I am still a great believer that war is not a correct choice, but I have found thru my research that many of the pacifistic forms of help are not very successful at all. What also is very sad is the fact that helping other countries is not a necessity to all countries of the world. This causes the U.S. to have to choose who to help. My opinion is that the choice of which countries to help should be based on where the most human suffering is occurring. The aid that can reach the most people will help the most people. I believe that there is not really an objective way to look at the situation because of comments I made towards the end of the post about the amount of human emotion which is involved in the issue.
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