If you follow politics closely, you'll often times hear politicians talk about the need to have a "strong national defense." But what does that actually mean? Does the word "defense" actually mean what most politicians claim it means? To get an idea of what the word "defense" actually means, I think it's important to look up the dictionary definition of the word. The meaning of the word "defense" in the dictionary is "resistance against attack, protection." Given that definition of the word, it's hard to argue against having a strong national defense. We need to have strong defense capabilities in order to prevent another country or a certain group of people from attacking us.
In my view, one of the things we need to do to have a strong national defense is to secure our borders. Many of the 9-11 hijackers were in our country illegally, which demonstrates the need to seal our borders to stop people from coming here who wish to do us harm. We also need to take a closer look at our VISA system, and make sure that we deport anyone who overstays their VISA. We need to have a strong military that we use to defend our borders and coastlines here at home. Putting our military along our borders would stop illegal immigration cold, and having a strong military is a great deterrent against other countries that wish to attack us. I believe that it's also necessary to oppose large reductions in our nuclear arsenal, as our nuclear weapons also serve as a deterrent against those who wish to harm us. I believe that it's important to invest in a missile defense shield that covers the entire U.S. If we were to focus on creating a missile defense shield that's capable of knocking down a missile that contains a nuclear warhead, we would be able to prevent any kind of nuclear attack on the United States. Iran's nuclear weapon program would no longer be an issue. We would have the means to stop Iran from striking us through our missile defense capabilities.
However, I strongly believe that our government's current national security and foreign policy has very little to do with "national defense," and everything to do with "international offense." We currently have over 900 military bases around the world in over 130 countries, which simply amounts to a massive expense for the United States. American taxpayers are essentially paying for the defense of other countries, when these countries should be responsible for paying for their own defense. Also, today's neo-conservatives are big proponents of the concept of "pre-emptive war." These people believe that it somehow benefits our national security to invade foreign countries. This ideology has been a complete failure in the past, but unfortunately the ideology is still prevalent among members of the Republican Party, and even some members of the Democratic Party. The people who support this philosophy support foreign intervention regardless of the cost. They don't look at the fact that the Iraq War cost our country over two trillion dollars, putting us further into debt. Former neo-conservative Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney famously said that "deficits don't matter." Cheney's view was that it was necessary for our country to spend trillions of dollars on foreign wars on the backs of American taxpayers, and the amount of money added to the debt "simply doesn't matter." Cheney believed that the invasion of foreign countries was necessary at all costs, because it was necessary as a matter of "national security." But is it really necessary?
My view is that these foreign interventions have made our country far less safe, not more safe. The country of Iraq is actually less stable than it was before, and Christians are also being persecuted at a much higher rate than they were before. Iraq has become a safe haven for radical Islamists who seek to cause terror and persecute Christians. Saddam Hussein was a bad man, but he was a secular leader who didn't tolerate these Muslim extremists. He would often times execute the radical Islamists who seeked to implement Sharia Law in Iraq. Now, the country of Iraq is more friendly to terrorists than it was before, and the United States is less safe because of it. The result of our two trillion dollar war with Iraq is simply that we added two trillion more dollars to our national debt, got over 4,000 of our soldiers killed, and created a new Iraq that tolerates radical Islamists and persecution of Christians. I strongly believe that our foreign intervention makes us far less safe, and we need to quickly get back to a policy of having a strong national defense, and put an end to international offense.
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