by Yzzy Quarker

Created on: August 12, 2008   Last Updated: September 09, 2008

Imagine the number of articles this topic would receive if the question were reversed to read, "Should other countries intervene in the internal affairs of the US?" The outrage and indignation would vibrate from monitors throughout the United States. Keyboards would catch fire as fingers flew across them to say just how wrong it would be for anyone, anywhere, to intervene in our internal affairs.

Yet there are those among us who believe it is our responsibility to police the world. Their justification is that we are a superpower who owes it to the rest of the world to help those less fortunate. We are obligated to ensure that each country runs according to our idea of what is right or wrong. This would be a perfectly supportable idea if our government was motivated by altruism instead of politics and greed, which are the traditional criteria used to determine which countries need intervention. With no natural resource to exploit or important politician to befriend a country's internal affairs do not concern us.

If we intervened in every country with internal affairs that horrify we would soon run out of aid to offer. If we narrowed it down intervening in the affairs of countries committing atrocities against people we would already be in Darfur and Tibet, where intervention might truly be appreciated. In the past, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina would have been helped tremendously by some strategic intervention. There are millions of girls in poorer countries who have been, or will be, subjected to female genital mutilation, a procedure that horrifies the western mind. But with no gain for our country they are relegated to occasional sound bites on the local news, if that.

When our president saw an opportunity to invade an oil rich country he told every lie, spun every truth to justify intervening in that country's internal affairs. We continue to occupy this country at a stunning cost to our country under the guise of helping them get from under the thumb of a cruel dictator; a dictator we initially supported. But that country has oil, and neighboring countries with oil, so there we are five years after his removal from power.

Rather than turning our intervention to other countries it seems more advisable to turn our attention to the problems within our own. As a superpower it is a shame that we have American children with no food, medical care, or a safe place to live. The problems with our housing market it is inexcusable. Gas prices, enough said.

The list of problems with our internal affairs is appalling. A true patriot would insist that circumstances indicate we should clean up our own backyard before we concern ourselves with the messy yards of others.

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