Write an essay in which you explore and argue your point of view regarding the extent to which the United States should get involved in the internal affairs or  policies of other countries.

  
 The U.S. government has been active in helping developing nations either with technology or during times of war. The United States is doing something positive, but it is also creating chaos. Our government does not consider what kind of aftermath our intervention will create. The government likes to believe it has the right to police the world. The U.S. has given nuclear weapons technology to other countries so they can defend themselves. However, this has resulted in terrorist attacks and war against the United States. The U.S. government needs to know when to step back and say enough is enough. The U.S. was right in trying to help Vietnam; however, when our troops pulled out, conflicts still occurred with the U.S. and Vietnam. Despite repeated U.S. requests for information about 2,248 missing American servicemen, U.S. officials say Hanoi has refused to hand over surviving prisoners, the remains of deceased soldiers or documents that could explain their fate (Cooper).

If the U.S. had not intervened in Vietnam's Civil War, our government would not be asking for information about U.S. prisoners, their remains, or documents about them. In addition, we would not have lost so many service men. The Vietnamese government is most likely still holding our troops because they still have a grudge toward the United States for intervening in a situation that did not involve us. After 15 months of extensive research, hearings and investigative trips to Vietnam, the Senate Select Committee on POW/N41A Affairs released its long-awaited final report on Jan. 13, 1993 (Cooper). However, the report stated that there was no evidence of American servicemen alive in Vietnam. When U.S. forces finally pulled out, they should have left Vietnam in peace, instead of trying to find remains and causing more conflicts between our two nations. Helping nations has a direct link to selling artillery as well.

The government should realize what they are doing to Third World countries when selling artillery. Ever since the end of the Cold War, the United States has dominated the arms bazaar. Arms control advocates say exports cause untold misery in poor countries by diverting scarce resources away from investments in education, immunization and economic development (Cooper). They are so focused on selling arms that the main purpose of helping third world countries is forgotten. Third world countries could have saved millions of dollars for health-care and safer drinking water instead of buying arms from the U.S. Both sides were at fault. Former President George Bush Sr. made a mistake in continuing U.S. arms sale policies. If it was not for his ignorance other countries could be in better shape than they are right now. The arms bazaar still continues today.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, it made new concern for the spread of nuclear weapons. Even third world countries have or are trying to create nuclear arsenals. Iraq alone has spent an estimated $15 billion trying to create plutonium (Griffin). North Korea began running a large research reactor ... and is reported to be building a reprocessing plant to turn the reactor's spent fuel... into plutonium for weapons (Griffin). Since America has become a superpower, many developing countries have tried to take us down. Such is an instance as the September 11th attacks.

After the September 11th attacks the government has been looking for suspected terrorists and their supporters. ÒA British citizen was being held incommunicado by the United States. He had been transported, hooded and in chains, to the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he remains. The Justice Department says he is a member of Al Qaeda, the global terrorist group headed by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden (Masci). This shows how ignorant we are to jump to conclusions and not question the person first to get answers. Of course if the person does not cooperate, then they should take any measure necessary to get the answers our government needs.

When U.N. inspectors went into Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction, they never did. Was it possible that the American public was lied to or that due to our intervention the Iraqis got rid of the weapons and moved them to another hidden location? If most experts and officials say that Iraq does not pose an immediate threat, then why did we go to war? One possible reason is that President Bush wanted to finish what his father had started. Another reason is that our government did it out of retaliation to the September 11th attacks. Luckily, the government was able to capture the leader of Iraq.

Although we had captured Saddam recently, things have not gotten better in postwar Iraq. There have been recent reports on the news that chaos has been spreading throughout Iraq. As U.S. troops are trying to establish democracy, many of the troops have died either in friendly-fire situations or due to attacks by Iraqis, They have been protesting against the way we are trying to establish democracy and how bad the situation is getting. The troops should have pulled out after the capture of Saddam, instead of trying to establish democracy in a country that clearly does not want and appreciate it. This war would have not occurred if we did not intervene in Iraq's domestic affairs."What happened in Afghanistan was definitely an American victory," says Ranan R. Lurie, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  "Someone may still be shooting a mortar here and there, but the fact of the matter is, we took over Afghanistan in a few weeks, something that the Soviets couldn't do in 10 years." (Cooper). This statement shows that we are becoming more like the nations we seek to defeat. The U.S. wants every nation to be as successful as it has been but that will not happen due to the fact that we have to consider what that nation wants and it may not always be a democracy.

Another way our government fails to establish democracy is how the nation we helped uses democracy in a corrupt way. "In the Dominican Republic, Horacio Vasquez Lajara was elected president on the eve of the departure of American forces in 1924. But Vasquez's decision to prolong his term from four to six years derailed that country's democratization. His disregard for constitutional term limits provided an excuse for the military to stage a coup and establish autocratic rule for the next three decades (Pei, Amin, Garz)." Democratization failed to emerge in four cases (Cuba in 1902 and in 1909, Panama in 1936, and the Dominican Republic in 1966) (Pei, Amin, Garz). These examples show that the long-term success of American democracy-building efforts depends on Washington's willingness to act as a strict enforcer of fair electoral rules over the medium term (Pei, Amin, Garz).

 If our government does not stick around to make sure other countries are using democracy in a fair and just way, then our intervention should have not occurred and we should have backed off. It seems that some Americans are growing tired of our intervention in other countries, and want the U.S. to focus on domestic problems (Jost). However a good majority believes we should keep at it. Another incident that shows former President Bush's ignorance is when he dispatched troops into Somalia, As Mr. Atto says in the movie Black Hawk Down, "This is civil war; our war, not yours." Our government has to step back and wait for situations to become more corrupt and then consider whether to intervene or not. Just because we know something is happening in another country does not give us the right to step in and take over, even though the U.S. is a superpower.

Throughout history, our government has always tried to help other nations. In the event that we succeed, many lives were taken on both sides. Conflicts will go on for years until they are resolved. If our government keeps interfering with business that does not concern us, many nations that support us will eventually turn on us, resulting in a chaotic battle. The U.S. should back out of foreign affairs and concentrate on domestic ones until the domestic problems are resolved. Our technology should mainly be focused on third world countries' education and health, instead of selling arms and providing nuclear technology.

Works Cited

Black Hawk Down. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. George Harris. Columbia Pictures, 2002
 Cooper, Mary H. "Arms Sales." The CQ Researcher Online (1994). 20 March 2004   
            <http://library.cqpress.com.libproxy.csun.edu:2048/cqresearcher>.
---. "New Defense Priorities." The CQ Researcher Online 12.31 (2002). 20 March 2004
            <http://library.cqpress.com.libproxy.csun.edu:2048/cqresearcher>.
---. "U.S.-Vietnam Relations. ".The CQ Researcher Online (1993). 20 March 2004
            <http://library.cqpress.com.libproxy.csun.edu:2048/cqresearcher>.
Griffin, Rodman D. "Nuclear Proliferation." The CQ Researcher Online (1992). 18
            March 2004 <http://Ilibrqa.cqpress.com/cqresearcher>.
Jost, Kenneth. "Foreign Policy and Public Opinion." The CQ Researcher Online (1994). 19 March 2004
            <http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher>.
Jost, Kenneth and David Masci. "War on Terrorism." The CQ Researcher Online 11.35 (2001). 18 March 2004.
             <http://IibraEy.cq12ress.com/cqresearcher>.
Masci, David. "Ethics of War." The CQ Researcher Online 12.43 (2002). 19 March 2004 <http://Iibrary.cqpress.com/cqresearcher>.
Pei, Minxin. Amin, Samia. Garz, Seth. "Why Nation-building Fails in Mid-course after U.S. Intervention" International Herald Tribune 17
            March 2004. 18 March 2004.