Foreign Policy

I suppose I have to have a foreign policy. I wouldn’t call myself an isolationist, but I’m close. It’s just not polite to impose my will on anybody else; in fact, it’s rather rude and tends to generate hostility. I’m all for responding to someone’s need for help if they ask and I have the means to provide it. I’m all for speaking truthfully about what I think. I’m not for being the world’s blowhard telling everybody the best way to do things.

If someone punches me in the face, my tendency is to usually act in a manner consistent to self-preservation. Usually. I have been known to act in a way to make damn sure said attacker never wants to do it again. I guess it’s about making the punishment fit the crime. So I think we over reacted to 9/11. We should have been more patient, focused precisely on Osama and his crew, and ground them into the dust. The best I can say about Iraq is we won the war and lost the peace. I think it didn’t fool anybody we didn’t admit it was at least partly about oil.

I think we probably did the right thing in Libya.

About Israel and the Palestinians, a friend is a friend, but a real friend tells you the truth, a friend tells you when you’re screwing up. From my point of view we haven’t been a real friend to Israel. Not saying you can take this literally, but just because your neighbor is an ass doesn’t mean you should be one too.

France is just like us. They think they’re better than everybody else, too. That's never going to be pretty.

I believe in fair trade, in paying a reasonable amount for a reasonable return. I don’t think we should bully anybody into giving us a deal. I also don’t believe in letting someone strong arm or guilt us into paying more than something is worth. If we are guilty and owe reparations, that’s a whole-nuther-thing.

I don’t believe in the practice of dumping, selling toxic shit we’ve banned here to third world countries. Similarly, if an American companies dose something outside our borders we wouldn’t let them do here they should be subject to prosecution as if they did it here. Same goes for American owned companies.

So that’s a start. I realize if I’m intending on shaking up the status quo a lot of people aint going to like it so it won’t be a cake walk.