Staff Edit: Isolation not the answer

Despite President Bush’s frequent calls for the spread of democracy around the world, a survey released yesterday by the Pew Research Center showing an increasingly isolationist sentiment among the American people indicates that the United States needs to rethink its foreign policy and be more selective about where and when it flexes its muscle.

Forty-two percent of Americans now think the United States should “mind its own business internationally,” according to the survey, but to adopt an isolationist stance in this day and age would be a mistake. Globalization and instantaneous communication have made the world too intricately connected for any of its nations, let alone its sole remaining superpower, to look inward.

For all the advancements made by modern science and technology, too many people in the world live below the poverty line, spending their lives in conditions the average American would find intolerable even for a day. To look inward would be a slap in the face to less developed nations across the globe, only confirming the perception that the United States is too self-absorbed to care for the billions of people who have never come close to the material prosperity enjoyed by Americans.

If the United States is to continue its economic leadership, it should strive to be more connected with the rest of the world, not less. As India and China position themselves for an economic boon in the 21st century, the United States truly cannot afford to lag behind. It should seek every opportunity to establish connections abroad that would help improve its trade deficit and enable it to remain a competitor with other, faster-growing economies.

It is understandable that the poor handling of the War in Iraq has caused many to want to avoid further entanglements abroad. The quagmire into which the war has devolved makes it clear that the United States should send its troops into other nations only when the situation truly calls for it. It is obvious now that Saddam Hussein was not hiding any weapons of mass destruction, but even before the evidence proved President Bush wrong, there was a more pressing situation than what Saddam Hussein did or did not have up his sleeve.

Although the United Nations has proven itself inept by failing to label the mass murders in Sudan a genocide, that does not mean the United States should not, and cannot still, intervene there. The despicable and horrifying acts of death and destruction being committed by the Janjaweed and condoned by the Sudanese government against the non-Arab tribes are an atrocity that the world cannot continue to overlook with a clear conscience.

Equally deplorable was President Clinton’s lack of action in Rwanda; if we truly value human life, let alone hundreds of thousands of lives, we should not forget what world leaders agreed upon after the Holocaust – that it would never happen again. Unfortunately, it is happening before the world’s eyes right now, and action in Sudan is long overdue.

Americans should understand that slavery in the world did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation; the Sudanese government continues to enslave its people every day. To look inward and ignore this gross violation of human rights would be a terrible mistake and a contradiction of the principles for which our nation stands.