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Alan Keyes on Foreign Policy
Routine military intervention is wrong
Q: When do you think the US should become involved in militarily around the world? A: We need to end the Clinton policy of interventionism on behalf of all kinds of globalist interests that are of not direct relevance to our values. Kosovo was an example. We ought to avoid interventions that are based on propaganda. We’ve got to send a message to the world, that we will not be stepping in to intervene in the affairs of other countries on any kind of routine basis.
Panama Canal: Keep US in; keep China Out
Keyes says the Panama Canal treaty was a “stupid mistake” and that he would take steps to return the canal to US control if elected. Last month, the US turned control of the canal over to Panama as called for under a 1977 treaty, which Keyes said he did
not support. Keyes believes the Chinese could be seeking ways to control the waterway. “We’re in a situation now where it would be folly to wait until the Communist Chinese get some kind of entrenched foothold in Panama.”
Africa: No money for AIDS, because money won’t cure AIDS
Q: Should we appropriate $300 million out of the surplus to help fight AIDS in Africa? A: The premise of your question [is that we] measure compassion is by how much money we’re going to throw at some problem, regardless of whether the problem is susceptible to being dealt with by all the money. After all, asking whether we should spend $300 million to cure an incurable disease is kind of an academic point, and you should realize that.
Against paying UN until they reform
Q: Do you think our reasons for withholding payment from the UN are valid? A: I do think they’re valid. To try to get the United Nations to reform its wasteful practices, reform its opposition to the free enterprise approaches that could actually help countries around the world to develop, we withheld those dollars. And I’d continue to withhold them today because the organization has not responded, it has not reformed. And I think it until it does, we ought to stand firm in our position.
Fostered policy of withholding UN funds; UN wastes US taxes
I’ll take the blame for [withholding UN funding], because I was one of those people in the Reagan administration who helped foster that policy. We withheld our contributions because it is an organization that takes our money, tosses it down the rathole
of UN waste, and puts our money into the pockets of the rich people in developing countries. [Paying the UN gives US taxes] to international bureaucrats who are basically interested in doing nothing but maintaining their own comfort and security.
Call to account those responsible for Chinese espionage
I cannot understand how any American can be complacent about [Chinese espionage detailed in the Cox Report]. We will be struggling to deal with the consequences of this devastating blow for the next 20 and 30 years. And yet many Americans are still just
sitting and watching. We should have a deep sense of outrage, and our political leaders should call to account those who have been on watch. God help us if we accept a week or two of public hand-wringing over the Cox Report as an adequate response.
If the UN undermines US sovereignty, we should quit.
Some American politicians have been so corrupted by internationalism that they will not resist the temptation to erect the United Nations into a supra-national entity that undermines our sovereignty. Should it prove impossible to fight this tendency
by other means, the United States would have to withdraw from the United Nations, while clearly maintaining our ongoing commitment to our international responsibilities as a sovereign nation and world leader.
South Africa: Venture capital instead of foreign aid
Foreign aid is everybody’s favorite whipping boy, which makes you wonder how it has managed to survive for so long. One reason may be that we all have our exceptions to the general anti-foreign aid bias. I confess that South Africa would be high
on my list of favorite exceptions. But then I realize what a disservice we will do to South Africa’s people, particularly her black people, if we continue to think of them as victims. Standard foreign aid projects, funneling money government-to- government through inefficient bureaucracies and political networks, will end up consuming millions while wasting South Africa’s most valuable resource. South Africa needs venture capital, the kind you get from corporations rather than governments. The people who spent so much time and effort getting investors to pull out of South Africa [on anti-apartheid platforms] need to organize just as massively for them to go back in.
Support Israel on moral grounds, not economic nor strategic
As US Ambassador to the UN Economic & Social Council, I spent somewhere between 50% and 70% of my time dealing with our policy toward the Middle East in general and with the US-Israeli relationship in particular. It is not easy to defend our
special relationship with Israel at the practical, pragmatic, entirely material level: strategic interests; sheer economics; geopolitics; where the oil is. You can’t sustain the argument in favor of a strong partnership with Israel solely on the basis of
those considerations. The best case we can make is at the level of our moral identity. When we come face to face with the ultimate issues of war and peace, all of those geo-strategic things go by the boards. [We should] appeal to arguments that stir the moral sentiments of this nation, and that call upon our willingness to moral commitments, to the things that we believe are right.
Rwanda: Humanitarian grounds 150x more than in Bosnia
Q: Do you support President Clinton’s Bosnia policy? A: No. Every single argument that was raised with respect to Bosnia on humanitarian grounds applied over 150 times to Rwanda, and we sat on our hands and did nothing. Why do we need to send 20,000 troops to Bosnia when all those European countries can do the same job we can? Our neighboorhood is our neighborhood.
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