Saturday, January 10, 2015

Time for Obama/US to speak out

Empowerment has many  facets, or areas that afect our lives!


I often speak out on issues with the government and its response to support HIV and Elder matters.  Today I wish to  address what I see as a failure of the current federal government to approach foreign policy positively.

Our intelligence community under George Bush effectively  developed hacking capability against our enemies, the issue has become how this technology is used to undermine the citizens of the US and our foreign allies.  The public revelation has shown that having this technology held within the secretive agencies is potentially bad.  The public poliicy already has a manner to control access and its use domestically and treaty agreements may provide similar controls.  The debate is an important public discussion, use of information is ultimately needs judicial oversight.
Secondly, I believe that our foreign policy has a very inappropriate plan.  It has been supported by our national security advisors, the State Department (which gives me cause to doubt support of Hillary Clinton) and the Defense Department.  This policy is initiated by the President.  The public elected President Obama in part because he promised to extricate US from troop on the ground in Iran and Afganistan and the indication that future troops on the ground would not occur.

The problem with that policy is that, the President has also been tentative about being a cheerleader for the dominance of the US as a democracy and economic leader of the world.

I may not agree with all the policies of Presidentt Ronald Reagan, or going back in history, Presidents Nixon, Eisenhower, Truman, or Roosevelt, but they always pursued policies of the the US first.  A simple invasion of Grenada along with outspoken rhetoric  during the Reagan years brought about the unification of East and West Germany and the break up of the Soviet Union.  The world leaders did not doubt that the US would act to protect their allies and promote freedom and democratic political efforts.

We have the most powerful and capable military the world has ever seen.  We can control the current needs for energy to fuel technology for the forseeable future. It  may seem unnecessary to puff out our chests or become braggards.  On the otherside, I do believe that we should be firm in our policies, and make statements that confirm our intent to maintain our position in the world.  Our leadership may not lead to peace in the world,  but it has and can in the future limit those conflicts to   borders of political entity without spilling out past those borders or draw other nations into the conflict without anticipating effective consequences.

A positive and dominating foreign policy does not in any way detract from the moral oblibation of Americans to support social needs within our own borders, maintain  the physical infrastructure of our nation, and support policies that ensures America's prominence in the future.