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Ralph Nader on Foreign Policy
Wage peace and anticipate conflicts abroad
When to use American military power abroad? His would be a foreign policy that focused more energetically on preventing war, said Nader: “We’re not waging peace with rigorous energy, mediation, anticipating conflicts abroad.”
Forget “hot spots”; ask “How did we get into this?”
What’s really amazing is that any discussion of foreign policy is usually about current hot spots, instead of asking, how did we get into this situation in the first place? What could we have done to avoid it? For example, how many years did we prop up
the dictatorship of the former Belgian Congo? Now look how it’s all falling apart over there, right? Well, we had no preventive diplomacy, no preventive defense. It’s always, who’s in charge, and, go out and support then as long as they’re anticommunist.
Redefine national purpose to solve Third World scourges
Do we wish to expand the definition of national security and national purpose to show how, with reasonable amounts of knowledge, resources and goodwill, we can rapidly
begin to defeat the global scourges of poverty, contagious disease, illiteracy, lack of shelter, environmental devastation, and to recognize the genius of Third World peoples to help it flower?
Support foreign peasants instead of foreign dictators
Isn’t it about time that the US government stop supporting dictatorships and avaricious oligarchies with our tax monies, munitions and diplomacy? Isn’t it time that our government takes a cue from numerous
studies and model projects, and advances foreign policies that support the peasants and the workers for a change.
Support social and economic justice across the globe
- Nader supports the Green Party Platform, which states: Greens support sustainable development and social and economic justice across the globe.
- The Green Party calls for military spending to be cut by 50% over the next 10 years, with increases in spending for social programs.
- It is our belief that the massive debt owed by the Third World is causing immense misery and environmental destruction. FOREIGN AID must be addressed in the context of retiring this debt and not forcing structural adjustments via the IMF and WORLD BANK on the economies of the underdeveloped world.
- We call for a more enlightened policy on the part of INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES and their financial arms which takes into account the impact of international debt management. The US should rein in the IMF and World Bank, and demand that loans be conditional on human rights and labor rights records, social and environmental impact statements, and the providing of basic health and education.
Assist Russia & Israel in moving towards better governments
- Nader supports the Green Party Platform, which states:
- We encourage policies that work to assist the FORMER SOVIET UNION in its move toward a government based on rights and a more open political and economic system.
- We support peace in the MIDDLE EAST based on respect for civil liberties and human rights.
- We support the end of the economic blockade of Cuba. Unjust economic coercion by one state against another constitutes a violation of human rights.
- We believe in the core RIGHT of SELF-DETERMINATION; of the special character and needs of INDIGENOUS PEOPLES; of the essential importance of balancing economic development in the THIRD WORLD with a respect for the “old ways.”
- We endorse an EXPANDED PEACE CORPS.
- We encourage the important work of NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs), much in evidence at the United Nations “Earth Summit” in 1992 and in efforts to democratize the World Trade Organization in 2000.
Iraq: Trade sanctions strengthen Saddam
On trade sanctions against Iraq: “The way a dictator gets power is by convincing the people there is an enemy [as US trade sanctions have helped him do]. If Saddam
Hussein were in charge of American foreign policy towards Iraq, he would do exactly the same thing as we have.”
Selling arms is not a good way to conduct foreign affairs
Q: US corporations are dying, literally, to get into Cuba and Iran. Ideology is keeping them out. A: How are they dying to get in? They were dying to get in Iraq and sell Saddam Hussein military weapons before 1990. They want to get into other countries to sell arms. I don’t think that’s a good way to get in.
Cuba: corporate sales of junk undermines their system
Q: US corporations are dying to get into Cuba. What are your views on Cuba? A: What do they want to sell Cuba?
Q: Casinos and hotels.
A: Of course. Casinos, hotels and junk products and junk food and try to undermine their organic agriculture expansion and their more self-reliant health system and get people into dependency through all kinds of pharmaceuticals. They’re trying to export their model of economic expansion that is destructive of the environment and of self-reliant communities.
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