America’s Double Standards in Foreign Policy

Over the last two decades the question of United States Military deployment to foreign countries has often been a controversial topic of discussion and the argument related to this topic are mainly associated with the fact that there has been a lack of a clear rule in force during these incidents.

During the Gulf war in Iraq, the United States sent its forces through land, air and sea with the intention of intervening and stopping Iraq from invading Iraq and destroying their oil fields. At this time the military was painted in glory due to the successes they had in this foreign land. Barely a year later, the country again sent its forces to Somalia on a botched mission infamously known as ‘Black hawk down.’ The humiliation of its military led to the quick withdrawal from the country. In 1994 during the Rwanda Genocide the country kept away from any form of direct involvement, even going to the extent of claiming that there was no genocide and in defence of the same, the then president, Bill Clinton stated that “America has no friends, it only has interests.” By this time a million innocent people had been killed.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the country again launched strikes in Afghanistan against the Taliban and soon after in Iraq against Sadam Hussein and his regime. Two years into the campaign they managed to capture Sadam but stayed one for almost a decade in the name of reintroducing democracy. The state of Iraq today is little to show for the efforts of the United States’ forces. This effort only earned the country much more enemies in the middle East and the blunders of the military have contributed fodder to the increasing number of terrorist organizations. The question that then begs is about the interests that the government has. Clearly its involvement in Rwanda would have saved lives rather than drive up casualty numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are the interests more important than the lives of people in a third world country?