The Ethicsof World DominationThroughout the past 70 years the U.
S. hasbeen involved in hundreds of conflicts all around the globe. Everytime the United States troops are deployed to a foreign country, citizensof the U. S. want to know why.
People begin to ask questions like, “whatis the purpose of this?” or “what is the nature of our involvement?” Nobodywants to see the strong youth of our nation shipped of to a foreign countryto get slaughtered without good cause. Millions of American men andwomen have devoted their lives to the service and protection of the freedomsthat we as citizens of the United States hold dear. These peopledeserve the utmost respect from all citizens of the United States. When the government of our country see fit, our troops are sent to fightoften in places that they have never even heard of. When they returnthey are heroes to be revered, or are they? All to often things gowrong in these foreign countries and the soldiers often end up taking thebrunt of the nation’s frustration. When the government makes mistakesand things do go wrong it causes the citizen of the U.
S. to closer analyzethe situation. The citizens of the United States want some answersand the government often fails in its attempts to satisfy the publics’need to know. Ever since the beginning of the U. S.
the governmenthave come up with one reason or another to start or get involved in conflictsthat should have otherwise been left alone. One of the first andmost prominent examples of this is the almost total enialation of the NativeAmerican population in this country. Is the destruction of a cultureand a society as vast as that of the Native Americans really morally andethically permissable? The United States government thought thatit was. According to them it was God’s own destiny for them to conquerthe entire continent to bring it under the U.
S. control. This justshows that difference in ethical value strongly affects what a countrywill accept as good cause for fighting. More recent conflicts likethe Korean War, the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada, and the Gulfwar have made people analyze the ethicality behind the fighting.
They look for the true reason behind the involvement of the U. S. , in anattempt to find justification for the use of U. S.
troops in foreign affairs. This paper is an attempt to look at the ethicality of some of the majorconflict that the U. S. has been involved since the end of WW II. It will also attempt to analyze what has come to be known as the “WorldPolice” mentality and the actions that the United States has taken to displaythis. During the period of 1946-1950 a forty-yearperiod began called the Cold War.
The Cold War was a period of aggressionin the name of democracy. During this time the United States didsome questionable activities under the guise that they were protectingagainst the spread of communism. On June 25, 1950 North Korea, using Chinesetraining and Soviet military equipment, attacked South Korea. TheUnited States believed that Stalin and the USSR were ultimately behindthe invasion. The South Korean defenses crumbled and the United Statessent ground troops on June 30. The United Nations endorsed the deploymentof troops because the USSR was boycotting the United Nations.
Itwould seem a bit unfair that the United States would receive UN endorsementbased solely on the premises that the USSR had chosen not to be a partof the UN. This become even more apparent when you take into accountthat the United States was not even certain that the USSR was even involvedin the dispute. On September 15, 1950, after a daring amphibiousattack 150 miles behind enemy line the US was able to push the North Koreansback into North Korea. This is where the war should have stopped. The North Koreans were in North Korea and the South Koreans had controlover South Korea.
Furthermore, China was threatening that if theUS tried to unite Korea by force then they would enter the war on the sideof the North Koreans. Despite both of these facts, the United Statespushed further into North Korea. Knowing that it would cost thousandsof American lives and thousands more Korean lives to unite a country thatwanted to be separated, General Mc arthur and President Truman, with UnitedNation’s support, pushed on. A two-year war ensued that would ultimatelycost the lives of 140,000 American service men and women.
In theend the country ended up just as it was before. Nothing lost, nothing gained. The United States’ attack of Korea is consideredto be one of the worst failures of intelligence and strategic leadershipin the history of the United States military. In Washington, theexcitement of victory on the battlefield on September 15, 1950 obscuredthe real objective of the war, which was to protect the freedom of theSouth Korean people and reinstall a South Korean government. In ashallow attempt to win seats in congress for the democrats, Truman pushedGeneral Mc Arthur to continue the attack and try to roll back communism.
A willing Mc Arthur was glad to oblige as he let his wish for militarysuccess and a heroic reputation get in the way of his competent operationof the United States military troops in Korea. The Korean War wasa very political war with both the president and chief general directingthe US forces looking for large victories to help bolster their careers. Truman was looking for democratic votes and Mc Arthur was looking for glory,but unfortunately there was no one looking out for the US troops or thedesires of the South Korean people. The Korean War was a good example of ethicalegoism. It was a war in which all the involved parties were lookingout for their themselves and ignoring the effects that they had on everyoneelse involved. The utility on a more global scale was not consideredbecause politicians were blinded by the attractiveness of glory and anopportunity to push their own political agendas.
At 2am on February 7, the Viet Cong attackedthe United States base at Pleiku, two hundred and forty miles north ofSaigon, killing 8 Americans and Injuring 100 as well as destroying tenUS aircraft. A reltaliatory strike was immediately recommended andoperation Flaming Dart went into action. Flaming Dart was an airstrike were bombers took off from United States aircraft carriers in thearea and bombed “supposed” strategic military sights in North Vietnam. The “supposed” strategic military sights included a number of intentionalbombings of civilian installments. A month later operation RollingThunder began which was a full-scale offensive air attack. By doingthis the United States crossed the line from being a supporter of the SouthVietnamese to becoming the main leader of the entire offensive in SouthVietnam.
Shortly after, the American people began to become dividedover the war and antiwar protests fostered violence all over the country. The government that was supposed to be of the people and for the peoplewas ignoring the concerns of the people and often responding to there protestswith extreme violence. Protests continued and became ever more intense. The selective service system that was intended to strengthen the military,was often a focal point for the protests. In 1967 Martin Luther KingJr called the war a moral disaster pointing to the fact that black peoplemade up only eleven percent of the population of the US but they made up23 percents of the people killed in the war.
He also pointed outthat the war costs weighed more on the poor and the working class becausedeferments were granted to students in college and the poor and the workingclass could not afford to attend college. Because of presidentialpromises in early 1970, citizens of the US were under the impression thatthe war was coming to a close and that the US involvement was declining. On April 30, 1970, in a breach of the American people’s trust the US militaryforces invaded Cambodia. When this hit the news in the US the peoplewere furious and students closed down colleges across the country. These strikes in Cambodia weakened the Cambodian government and openedit up to a working class revolution that cost the lives of over a millionCambodians.
The gulf of Tonkin resolution was repealed and the USmilitary troops were limited in their actions to only South Vietnam. The official cease-fire began on January 27, 1973 and the United Statespromised not to increase its aid to South Vietnam. Nixon suspendedthe draft in favor of an all-volunteer military. This is another example of egoism displayedby the United States. When the US decided to invade Cambodia, theydid not take into account what might happen to the inhabitants of the area. They were thinking solely of what benefit it might have for the UnitedStates of America and not what the actual utility of the action might beon a global scale.
They had not considered that millions of peoplemight die as a result and the unfortunate reality of the situation is thatover a million people did die as a result. In the early morning hours of October25, 1983 the United States invaded the small Carribean Island of Grenadawith 1200 troops. They met heavy resistance from Cuban and Grenadaninstallments. The US force was enlarged to 7000 and within days theisland fell under US control. Shortly after, the US installed a governmentthat was not communist and Pro-US.
Just weeks earlier the GrenadanArmy under the leadership of the deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard seizedcontrol of Grenada in a bloody coup. Coard was a hard line Marxistand this raised concern among the population of the US because of its proximityto the US coast. Also there were some 1000 students at a medicalschool in Grenada. Under the guise of a rescue for the students,the government went in and seized total control of the island in an attemptto stomp out communism in the Carribean and confront what Reagan consideredto be a threat from the Soviet Union.
The attack was apposed by the Organizationof American States of which the US was a part. The action was also”deeply deplored” by the United Nations based on its 1970 injunction thatstated that no state or group of states has the right to intervene indirectlyor directly for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairsof another state. The United Nations Security Council voted 11-1against the attack with the only positive vote coming from the United States. Grenada was seen by many as a make-up war to appease the US citizens thatwere outraged by a truck bomb attack that killed 241 US marines in Beirut,Lebanon. The United States chose to ignore the recommendations ofthe organizations that it belonged to, in order to relieve its aggressionon a country that was for all intents and purposes, innocent of any crimeagainst the United States. The underlying political agenda of extractingrevenge from Grenada clouded the president’s judgement in the invasion.
The end of the cold war marked the endof this nation’s fear of communism. There was no more need for theUnited States to intervene in the affairs of other countries on behalfof democracy. On August 2nd 1992 Iraq invaded Kuwaitand seized the entire country. Immediately the president of the UnitedStates George Bush ordered an unconditional withdrawal. Whydid President George Bush feel that he had the authority or the right tomake such demands? It was not because Iraq had become a threat tothe security of the United States, or because he feared that Iraq wouldgrow to a point where Saddam Hussien’s regime was to powerful for the UnitedStates or the world to handle.
No it wasn’t that at all. Thereason behind the US involvement is that president bush thought that hemight have to pay a few cents extra for gas to fuel his Cadillacs. Because the seizure of Kuwait put Iraq in control of 20% of the oil productionand reserves for the world, President Bush feared that it might have economicreprocutions for the United States. Operation Desert Storm was putinto action and tens of thousands of US troops were moved into Saudi Arabiaalong with hundreds of aircraft.
George Bush took this as a goldenopportunity to assert the world influence of the United States. Hewas able to gain allies quickly and get most of the developed nations ofthe world to boycott Iraqi oil. After a quick but fierce bombingattack the war was over within 100 hours. That wasn’t the last wewere to see of Saddam Hussien though.
The US still has troops inthe Persian Gulf area. It is amazing to think that countries willbond together against an enemy and go to war and give their lives and thelives of their nations youth of money. Is it worth the lives of thousandsof people just to keep oil costs down? It doesn’t seem to be to me. Does the world need a world police?John Locke says yes.
According to Locke in the state of nature itis natural for groups of people to come together in their own self-interest,to form a society. In these societies the surrender some of the personalrights that they had in the state of nature and delegate them to a singlegovernment. If these people were in the state of nature the mightmake social compacts with others. They would feel no obligation touphold them if they no longer were of any benefit to them because therewould be no consequences for breaking these social compacts. Withoutpunitive consequences these people will only honor contracts when it isconvenient for them. Locke also says that social groups will actthe same way in their interactions with other social groups.
Theonly way to get these groups to honor social compacts is to create laws,consequences, and a body with the means and authority to enforce them. The same goes for countries on a much larger scale, because for all intentsand purposes a country is just a large social group. These countrieswould act as individuals in the state of nature because there is no worldpolice or authority to keep countries in line. Locke says that toget countries to work together and follow laws and honor compacts, thereneeds to be a single power or law-enforcing agency that acted as a worldwideadministrator of discipline and law, a world police. The problem arises when one country ororganization tries to assert power or force on a country when they don’thave the right to.
Locke says that in the state of nature no personor group of people is bound to any social compact that they did not enterin to knowingly and voluntarily. This means, according to Locke,that if there were to be an almighty world police then every country inthe world would have to agree to wave their personal rights in the stateof nature and delegate the authority to enforce laws and consequences toone individual or organization. It would be virtually impossibleto get every country in the world to enter into such a social compact. Despite that the world still needs to have some sort of order among countriesor some of Locke’s inconveniences will begin to arise.
