When President Trump decided to relocate a few troops on Syria’s northern border and announced that he would withdraw all the other U.S. troops from Syria, interventionists went ballistic. They said that Trump was leading America to “isolationism.”
A B-2 Spirit soars after a refueling mission over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, May 30, 2006. The B-2, from the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., is part of a continuous bomber presence in the Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III)
That’s pretty funny, given (1) there is still no assurance that the Pentagon and the CIA are going to permit Trump to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria; (2) Trump is sending troops that he withdraws from Syria into Iraq and Saudi Arabia; (3) Trump continues to maintain troops in Afghanistan despite having had three years to have taken them out; (4) Trump continues to partner with the Saudis in their brutal war in Yemen; (5) Trump imposes sanctions and embargoes against any regime that bucks his will, including Turkey, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, China, and others; (6) the Pentagon and the CIA continue to maintain foreign imperial bases and secret prison camps all over the world; (7) Trump has kept the United State in NATO and other entangling alliances; and (8) foreign aid continues flowing into foreign regimes, dictatorial ones.
If that’s “isolationism,” I’d hate to see what interventionism looks like!
When we talk about foreign policy, there are two different systems from which to choose — the system of the statists, both Republican and Democrat, and the system that we libertarians favor.
The statist system
The statists have brought us a system in which the president, the Pentagon, and the CIA wield the unlimited power to intervene anywhere in the world they choose. Such interventions can take the form of coups, assassinations, invasions, wars of aggression, occupations, sanctions, embargoes, and partnerships with dictatorial regimes.
Under this system, there are no external limitations on the power to intervene and meddle in the affairs of other countries. No one even enforces the requirement in the Constitution that the president secure a congressional declaration of war before he, the Pentagon, and the CIA wage war.
That is the system under which we Americans live today, thanks to the statists, both Republicans and Democrats.
But it is more than that. The statist system is also one in which the American people in the private sector are prohibited from freely interacting with the people of the world. That’s what the sanctions, embargoes, trade wars, trade restrictions, travel controls, border restrictions, and Berlin fences and walls are all about.
Thus, the system under which we live today unleashes the power of the federal government to intervene in foreign affairs while, at the same time, isolates the American private sector from the rest of the world.
Ironically, one justification for isolating the private sector is to protect it from the threats that the Pentagon’s and CIA’s interventionism produces abroad. Thus, if the Pentagon and the CIA invade a country and kill thousands of people in the process, U.S. officials say that it’s necessary to keep Americans safe from the threat of retaliation. That’s how the secret surveillance schemes and travel restrictions come into play, for both foreigners and Americans.
The libertarian system
There is another system, however — a better one — one that we libertarians favor. It is the opposite of the system under which we live, with respect to both the government sector and the private sector.
Our system calls for no more governmental interventionism in the affairs of other nations. No more coups, foreign military bases, CIA prison camps, invasions, occupations, assassinations, alliances with dictatorial regimes, wars of aggression, sanctions, embargoes, entangling alliances, foreign aid, and the like.
At the same time, our system calls for a dismantling of the national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the military-industrial-congressional complex, the CIA, and the NSA. Our system calls for the restoration of a limited-government republic, which was America’s founding governmental system.
Ironically, that’s what interventionists call “isolationism.” They say that such a system “isolates” America from the rest of the world because it prevents the military and the CIA from “interacting” with the rest of the world with invasions, coups, warships, troops, bombs, missiles, and the like.
The interventionists forget the other half of the libertarian paradigm — the American private sector, the sector that they strive to isolate under their system. With our system, we do the opposite. We unleash the private sector to freely interact with the people of the world.
No more sanctions, embargoes, trade wars, travel restrictions, immigration controls, or other government measures that prevent Americans from interacting with foreigners or that punish them for doing so.
That’s not “isolationism.” That’s the opposite of isolationism because although the U.S. government is prevented from interacting with the world through death and destruction, the American people are free to interact with the rest of the world with tourism and trade.
The best American diplomats are American tourists and businesspeople. Foreigners love them because they bring friendship and commerce. The worst American diplomats are federal bureaucrats, especially those in the Pentagon and the CIA. Foreigners hate them because they bring arrogance, death, and destruction to foreign lands.
The American people have a choice. If you want more death, destruction, and isolationism of the private sector, just keep supporting the system that Republicans and Democrats have foisted upon our nation. If you want peace, prosperity, normality, and harmony with the people of the world, join up with us libertarians.
