Democrats VS Republicans on foreign policy.

A lot of hype has been made in the recent Presidential election about the apparent stark differences between the foreign policies of the two major parties, and with President Obama taking office recently people around the nation have taken hope that maybe the disastrous foreign policy of the Bush years might be reversed now that the Democrats have control of both the House and the White House. I do not share such enthusiasm. Although Obama is 100% correct in his desire to end the Iraq war, and I do believe he intends on brining this idiotic conflict to an end, the idea that the Democratic Party as a whole is an anti war party, steadfastly opposed to unnecessary wars, is a myth.


The Democrats, much like the Republicans who’ve been recently kicked out of office, are not an anti war party, and historically never have been. The illusion that the Democrats are anti war is forged mainly in their recent opposition to the Iraq war, and yet people seem to forget that when Bush first suggested going to war in Iraq he was enthusiastically supported by not only members of his own party, but by many prominent Democrats as well, Hillary Clinton (present Secretary of State) included. Obama has great respect from me for standing against the Iraq war, but unfortunately his position was not the position strongly supported by his fellow elected Democrats. Lulled by promises that the war would be quick, easy, bloodless, and would pay for itself, the Democrats followed the Republican lead and plunged the nation into not only an unnecessary war, but an unconstitutional one as well. No formal declaration of war was ever declared by Congress, and the constitution is very clear that only Congress, not the President, may declare war. If we are willing to accept the fact that the Iraq war is in fact a war, we must also realize that, by America’s laws, it is an illegal war as well.


Historically the Democrats have been the pro war party for years, getting the US unnecessarily involved in WWI under President Wilson, Korea under Truman, escalated the Vietnam War, and have used US troops in many peacekeeping operations around the world. During WWI Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, despite running on an anti war platform and promising the American people to keep us out of Europe’s bickering, unnecessarily pulled the US into war in Europe that we had no business being a part of. Thousands of US troops died in a war that did nothing to make American safer.


The current policy of fighting unconstitutional undeclared wars began during the Truman administration when Democratic President Harry Truman used a UN resolution to bypass American laws and send US troops to Korea without a declaration of war. Although this was a gross violation of the US constitution the growing power of the executive branch was left unchecked, and such violations were allowed to repeat themselves in Vietnam, Somalia, Dessert Storm, and today with our war in Iraq. All these wars have one thing in common, none were declared by Congress.


The Democratic Party, just like the Republican Party, is a party of opportunism. They are opportunists who will not hesitate to fight a war if they believe it is politically in their own self interest, never mind the interest of the country and the never mind the constitution. They supported the Republicans idiotic war because not supporting it would make them look weak, cowardly, un American, etc. They supported it when the war was popular, but when it turned south they claimed to be the anti war part; and although some of them, such as Obama were genuinely against the Iraq war, the party as a whole plunged into this war alongside Bush. They did not offer any resistance to it, nor did fulfill Congresses role by officially declaring war on Iraq. The Republicans were stuck with the war because it was their President who started it, although I have a sneaky suspicion that if a Democratic President had started the war places would be reversed, with the Republicans calling for the war to end and the Democrats saying “stay the course.” I guess we’ll never know.


The point is not to take the blame off the Bush administration or his cronies in the Congress, that is not my intention. The Republican Party has proven itself a failure and deserved the defeats it has endured. However, it is not wise to give the Democrats a free pass either in this foreign policy fiasco. The Democrats have a history of fighting unnecessary and undeclared wars, and they have not left that history behind them just because one of their own has been elected President. The Democrats, for all their talk and rhetoric, are no anti war party. They will fight unnecessary wars just as willingly as the Republicans if they believe they can win them and gain politically. Peacekeeping operations justified with UN resolutions and not American law have been fought before by the Democratic Party. In the Vice Presidential debates Vice President Joe Bidden stated that he would be in favor of US peacekeeping operations in Sudan and other troubled regions using American troops to enforce the peace. Although such operations are honorable in their intentions, one need only to look at US intervention in Somalia to see where such action can go horribly wrong. Such intervention would in no way make American safer, and would only serve to put American troops in harms way serving nations and people other then our own. Such action would be a betrayal to our troops who have pledged to serve this country, not another.


I do not trust the Democratic Congress in Washington any more then I trusted the Republican Congress (and I trusted them not at all). Change is coming to Washington, whether for good or ill I know not, but that change will not be in our foreign policy. Wars will continue to be undeclared, troops will still die unnecessarily in battles that even if won will not make America any safer, and generations from now our children will look back with equal disdain for both major political parties and their leaders.


Democrat or Republican, it doesn’t matter. In the end, it is not principle which guides them, but a pursuit for power. Never forget that.