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The systematic misunderstanding of America’s international role & our processes of gov’t are entirely the fault of a generational failure to properly educate students. We have an education system that drops bread crumbs of knowledge without any context.
“Gender programs” in Pakistan, which make up .00085% of the new omnibus, aren’t “gender studies”. They are programs that attempt to get more women in classrooms & to set the nation on a path for a terrorist-free future(AlQaeda/Taliban forces sit along Afghan border).
Much of our foreign aid spending, which makes up a minuscule portion of our nat’l budget, serves a vital role in maintaining free & stable government in regions facing attacks from within and without (most notably, via China’s various engineering, military, and aid projects).
Can we do better? Yes. Hell yes. 100 times better! But it won’t be accomplished by withdrawal. Because if history has taught us anything, it’s that the world comes knocking whether or not we acknowledge it. 9/11 is a grim reminder of this axiom.
There’s room for disagreement. I don’t happen to think that Western-style democracy is a universally applicable style of governance, especially considering the wide variety of cultural/social/moral frameworks spanning the globe.
I do happen to believe that a world dominated by China, which is currently herding millions of Moslems into concentration camps, and an oppressive Iran, hanging dissidents & funding terrorists, is less preferable than a pluralistic world with smart & concentrated US influence.
As Iran moves towards nuclear capability and the world destabilizes further, there is a need for a renewed focus on great power competition and balance of power.
is an empire & a nation-state, but we are also a people w/ a vision. Navigating the sea btwn/ idealistic purity & extreme realpolitik is our calling. But we can’t do it so long as generation after generation is given all the puzzle pieces but no vision of the finished puzzle.
