DOMESTIC POLICY OR FOREIGN POLICY

Domestic Policy or Foreign Policy

Domestic Policy or Foreign Policy

Introduction

In order for the United States to solve its problems it must first address what its troubles truly are. Although the debates have been heated to as what issues should be on the front burner, many citizens as well as politicians can agree that the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq seem to be what plagues America at this hour and these facts lead all US politicians to focus more on the American foreign policy.

What is essential to all of these problems is the fact that the United States must find a way to solve these quandaries in a different forum then used in the past. Many countries have viewed the Unites States as a guiding light, but at times people have wavered from their values and principles. The war on terror has been looked at and viewed by numerous critics in an attempt to describe the validity of this war. Although it is not a war that is centered around one common enemy or country the question of a just war still must come into play.

Discussion

Critics of the United States war on terror have argued that the United States military fights against enemy combatants that may or may not be the true enemy. With our on going war on terror, soldiers are left wondering who they are truly fighting since the enemy is not clear and concise. In The Moral Reality of War, Michael Walzer rights that“when soldiers fight freely, choosing one another as enemies and designing their own battles, their war is not a crime; when they fight without freedom, their war is not their crime (Clarke, 1988). Under these two principles the soldiers fighting for the United States are not choosing their enemy but must struggleto find an enemy to fight. For this reason alone the United States war on terror has become a difficult war to sustain.

What is crucial for the United States is that it fights the war on terror justly, and thus not lose sight of its goals, that of protecting the United States. Walzer later refers back to the case of Erwin Rommel, he states that “…and when he fought, he maintained the rules of war. He fought a bad war well, not only militarily but also morally” (Clarke, 1988). Similar to Rommel the United States must find a way to fight this difficult war well and morally.

What is virtually important for the United States is to attempt to get away from the ideas of Vietnam, in that soldiers acted immorally, and to embrace the idea that our soldiers are fighting a difficult war. The principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello stating that “people should draw a fine line between the war itself, for which soldiers are not responsible, and the conduct of the war, for which they are responsible, at least within their own sphere of activity(Byrne, 2004 ...