Party reps throw down on foreign policy

By Jonathan McFadden
mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

(From left) Kyle Steele, Andrei Botescu, Timothy Kroboth, Hampton Ballowe, Sean Shamble and Judson Abraham listen as the debate’s moderator, Whitney Hough, poses a question. Photo by Claire VanOstenbridge • vanostenbridgec@mytjnow.comAlmost unanimously, four college political groups decided that the United States should fix its own fiscal mess before helping European nations recover from their current economic woes. 

That’s about all they agreed on. 

Representatives from the College Libertarians, College Republicans, College Democrats and Socialist Student Union convened in Owens Hall on Nov. 15 to host a mock debate covering government spending, universal health care, the United States’ involvement in Iran and Syria and Al Qaeda’s connections to 9/11.

Combatants were given one minute to answer a question posed by the moderator and then a 30 second rebuttal after all parties took their turn. 

Battle lines were drawn as the moderator, College Democrats President Whtiney Hough, asked the debaters what the U.S. should do about Iran, a nation supposedly building its own nuclear arsenal.

“That’s just speculation,” said freshman philosophy major Kyle Steele, standing in for the Libertarians. “There’s no concrete evidence that they have a nuclear program up and running.”

Without stable infrastructure, Iran is not a threat to the U.S., Steele said. Instead, America should stray away from involving itself in the affairs of other countries, he said.

“When problems arise in other parts of the world, it is not our job to be preemptive about controlling their intentions,” added Andrei Botescu, a sophomore interior design major also subbing for the Libertarians. “If Iran has a nuclear program, what’s the problem with that exactly? We [the U.S.] have nuclear power here; we have nuclear weapons.”

For the past couple of years, the United States and European countries have suspected Iran of harvesting nuclear power for weapons, while the nation’s leaders claim the Middle Eastern country is harnessing nuclear energy to generate electricity without using oil, which they say is reserved for commerce.

College Republicans President and senior economics/political science double major Timothy Kroboth, called for economic sanctions to be placed on Iran, which would hinder their trade and cut off their access to resources that make nuclear weapons possible.

Leaving Iran alone “laissez-faire” is just “inviting trouble,” Kroboth said.

For Judson Abraham, president of the Socialist Student Union, the U.S. should assert its dominance over Israel, which has already announced its plans to attack Iran.

On Nov. 24, the vice prime-minister of Israel called for harsh economic sanctions on Iran that would compel the nation to choose either their possible nuclear weapons program or surviving economically. 

Instead, Abraham suggested that the U.S. should help create conditions supporting the Iranian labor movement in lieu of imposing sanctions that could hurt the Iranian people, who he said are already resistant to Israeli and Western intervention. 

Replies to a question about the Syrian revolts yielded similar answers. 

“We’re meddling where we shouldn’t be,” Botescu said in reference to U.S. military intervention to quell the protests, which began early this year when Syrian youth demanded their current president step down.

A revolt ensued, along with demands for racial and political equality and political freedoms. 

“…If it’s not detrimental to the United States public, it’s not a problem,” Botescu said.

Asked about the national debt, Kroboth knocked the 2009 stimulus package, saying lawmakers spent the money on items that “clearly are not going to stimulate the economy in terms of business support.”

The answer doesn’t lie with businesses, said College Democrats representative Hampton Ballowe, who added that businesses are adopting survival plans that focus on keeping their heads above water, not adding to the payroll. 

“Right now, we are in an economic state of chaos,” said Ballowe, a freshman political science major. “They [businesses] aren’t going to be creating jobs, they’re going to be cutting jobs.”

So the federal government, Ballowe said, needs to cultivate jobs for its citizens by rebuilding railroads and bridges.

“Where to spend” is paramount, said freshman math major Sean Shamble for the student socialists. “America’s infrastructure is in dire need of attention while simultaneously stimulating the American economy with job creation.”

On the topic of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, Botescu answered that there is still a lot of conspiracy surrounding 9/11. His point, he clarified, was that the nation did not handle its involvement with Iraq correctly.

“We’ve lost too many American lives, we’ve spent entirely too much money as a government on something that didn’t really get us as the United States anywhere,” he said. 

Kroboth said there’s no “absolute” proven link between Al Qaeda, the Islamic military organization responsible for 9/11, and Iraq.

“Sadaam Hussein did not enact 9/11,” Kroboth said. 

Kroboth said the nation should have focused on “beefing up” it’s national security as opposed to engaging in a “wild goose chase.” 

As for the military’s longevity in Iraq, Kroboth implied that the U.S. has a moral obligation not to pull out and leave the country in shambles.

He fears that once U.S. troops completely leave Iraq, Iran will waste no time in expanding their influence and turning Iraq into a “Shiite puppet state.”

Kroboth also questioned President Obama’s request for troop withdrawal, deeming it not so much of a military strategem as it could be a political chess move prior to the 2012 election.

Ballowe agreed. 

Though supporting “my boy Obama,” Ballowe said U.S. troops should stay in Iraq. Moreover, he said the president was influenced by a coalition of Iraqi leaders who wanted Americans to withdraw.

By leaving, Ballowe said the U.S. would be losing a “time battle” with the Taliban.

Ballowe echoed Kroboth’s notion that it’s doubtful there’s a direct connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. He said, though, that the U.S. took the chance to go after Hussein because “we really wanted oil.”

“The Iraq War…isn’t ending, hasn’t ended, Americans aren’t leaving, it’s just being farther privatized,” said Abraham. “American troops are just being replaced by mercenaries from some of the worst corporations capitalism has to offer.”