By Jack Parkos | United States

When a man says “family first” he will reschedule meetings to make time for his family. When a Christian says “God First” they make room for church on Sunday. What does a politician do when he or she says “America First”? Well not exactly that. Whether enacted by a Democrat or Republican, whether through foreign aid, warfare or global institutions, our foreign policy hasn’t been putting America first. Yet the people in charge claim it does.

Our policy has favored global institutions controlling power, decades of constant warfare, and maintaining an empire overseas. This approach costs countless lives and millions of dollars in resources. This is all based on the rhetoric that America has some sort of responsibility to “Spread democracy” around the world (which is ironic considering we aren’t even a democracy). Partner this with the military industrial complex and some elitism and you have a policy that has put other nations ahead of America.

Ironically it seems the people who scream the loudest about putting America first do so the least. Both parties are guilty. The rise of Neo-Conservatism has plagued both parties. Even President Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, dropped over 26,000 bombs a year in the Middle East. They always spread the lie that intervention is for security reasons and puts America first and keeps us safe. I don’t understand how rigging elections and installing puppet regimes keeps me safe. It only creates enemies.

Russia has been accused of hacking our elections and although we don’t even know if it changed the outcome or really even what happened, people are furious. So imagine how mad people get when the CIA does this to their elections. We have made a new enemy. And this enemy is now against America. Making enemies doesn’t put America first. Our government making enemies for us is cruel. If we minded our own business, we’d be a lot better off. Does this mean all nations will love America? No, but we would have less groups that hate us.

Civil Wars happen, America even had one. This doesn’t mean we need to intervene. In the American Civil War, the CSA hoped the British and French would send troops to help it defeat the Union. They did not. Why? Because they knew it may start a war between the US and Britain. Britain put their country and there people first. This seems very reasonable. Why does America not apply this policy? If we see a Civil War erupt many miles away across the ocean, we don’t have to intervene. This doesn’t help us.

Whoever is in charge of some country in the Middle East doesn’t harm your average American. But intervening will. War has great costs. Since 2001 America has spent 5.6 trillion dollars on wars in the Middle East. And you know who gets sent the bill? American citizens. Even worse than the great financial loss is the loss of life. America first means putting American citizens first. This should include our military. Sadly, our government hasn’t felt that way.

Imagine a mother getting the call her son was killed halfway across the world, she even was forced to pay for this war. Once the war is done, nothing changes. We are no safer. We were likely never in danger. It is simply immoral and wrong to ask people to send their sons to a place they don’t know, to fight for old men in suits, and then demand the bill be paid. Our military should be a defensive one used to protect the people and put the country first, not for intervention. This will put the American people first and truly keep us safer.

You may think we have a moral responsibility to intervene, because perhaps the regime is a tyrannical one. There are several issues with this idea. The first is that the people calling to intervene are calling for others to do it. Politicians in D.C. won’t be doing any of the fighting themselves. Further, when we elect representatives there job is to represent the American people. They don’t represent Israel, Palestine, Syria, or any other country. It simply isn’t their job to represent the rest of the world. Intervention is also bound to put us in a bind when it comes to our relationship with allies. When our allies commit an atrocity do we need to intervene?

The war hawk will say our allies would never, and that even if they did we would help. This is not true. We all remember Trump launching missiles into Syria after news of a gas attack. Meanwhile in the Israel-Palestine conflict, where both sides have committed war crimes, we side with Israel and ignore there harm perpetrated by Israel. This is simply outrageous and proves that Neo-conservatives have no principles. They will gladly intervene off of claims in Syria, but turn the other cheek when Israel commits atrocities. Do they really want to bring world peace or do they just want to benefit certain groups? It appears to be the latter, and the American people is not one of the groups benefited by this.

So what foreign policy will truly put America first? A policy that protects Americans and doesn’t harm the economy. Non-intervention is the only policy that does this. This would include restricting our military to a defensive role, allowing for free trade, and not meddling in the affairs of other countries. This would reduce both spending and casualties. We also should set the example to the world of what a free and prosperous country is like. But to do so, we first must become a free and prosperous country again. A major way we can do this is adopt the non-intervention foreign policy. If we want to put America ahead of everything else, perhaps we should put peaceful talks ahead of bombs. Intervention has not worked. It is time to try non intervention-the policy that promotes peace and prosperity.

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