I do not agree with Congress or the White House on continuing to send billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan. The newest government of Afghanistan isn't much friendlier to the U.S. than its predecessor. Today's Northern Alliance "freedom fighters" are tomorrow's militant foes of the United States.
Have we learned nothing from history?
We helped build an Afghan regime to fight the Russians, and supplied those "freedom fighters" with military weapons and missiles. From this crowd sprung Osama, al-Qaeda and the Taliban who used our own weapons to fight against us. Now we have armed and trained Afghan groups such as the Northern Alliance to fight Osama, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
How many years do you think will pass before this newest Afghan regime will be using American-made weapons against American soldiers in a future conflict?
American foreign policy - specifically that of sending foreign "aid" to other countries - is a disgrace. The U.S. Constitution does not allow the federal government to dole out taxpayer money to other nations. We are not an international welfare office.
President Grover Cleveland in 1886 said:
"When more of the people's substance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of the Government and the expense of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free government."
Former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson stated:
"I deem it a violation of the right of private property guaranteed under the Constitution for the federal government to forcibly deprive the citizens of this nation of their property through taxation or otherwise, and make a gift thereof to foreign governments or their citizens."
Where have such men gone? How have we allowed our Congress to become so infested with constitutionally-ignorant clowns who throw away billions of dollars on a foreign people while literally millions of Americans are living in poverty (not that I think it's the job of the US government to save our citizens from poverty)?
If we have given the federal government so much money that their only use for it is to throw it away in a dump like Afghanistan, then maybe it is time that we spoke up and demanded our money back.
Since our elected representatives won't listen to our polite requests to abide by the supreme law of the land, I suggest we raise the decibel level by employing civil disobedience. For more information, read:
It's Time for Civil Disobedience
©2008 Jake Morphonios, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Thursday, March 6, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, March 6, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of Jake Morphonios only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Jake Morphonios is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: ricknhouston
Date: 2008-03-06 21:32:40
From the SF Chronicle during the 2000 campaign:"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."Yeah, I get it, John McCain was held captive and tortured by the Vietnamese for five years. Well, you know what, a lot of people have personal trauma in their lives doled out to them by bad guys of every stripe, be they white or black or gay or Jewish or female. But we don't give those people the right to use racist and bigoted terms to describe an entire class of human beings, or even the specific people who hurt us. This goes a long way towards showing just how messed up Vietnam left John McCain, and why John McCain seems so willing to use racist attacks to take down Barack Obama. To McCain and the Republicans, Obama is just another "gook."
Oh, and just to be clear, the Somalians who dragged the lifeless bodies of US service members behind their trucks in 1993 after their Black Hawk helicopter was shot down, does McCain think it would be okay to call them "n-ggers" or "sand n-ggers"? (Or didn't those US service members suffer as much as John McCain?) Or how about the Israelis troops who blew up the USS Liberty, killing 34 American service members in 1967, does Senator McCain think it's appropriate to call them "k-kes"? Is attempted presidential assassin Squeaky Fromm a "c-nt"? I'm quite serious. Now, I'll bet John McCain would refuse to even answer the question because he'd say it's absurd, of course he wouldn't condone any of those words (at least that's what he'd say for public consumption). But when the victim of the slur is Asian, and the victim of the crime is John McCain, suddenly it's okay for John McCain to spout racism because John McCain would have you believe that he's the only American, the only soldier, to ever have suffered. He was tortured, you know. And he doesn't plan on ever letting you forget it.