‘America First’
I remember when it was people in other countries who said this about us
During my 30-year military career, I had the opportunity to live and travel throughout the world. During that time, I often heard the phrase “America first.” In the past several months, I hear that same phrase, more often and more vociferously, but, sadly, from fewer people.
Throughout my travels, people invariably would tell me, “If I could live anywhere in the world, I’d pick ‘America first.’ ” Their child wants to be a doctor, a scientist, an engineer — they have to be able to get into a university in “America first.”
When traveling recently in Eastern Europe, people in the Czech Republic and Hungary would tell my wife and me that now they live and speak freely, accomplish whatever their talents will allow them, go and do whatever they like, and that their lives are the way that they are because of the fall of communism, for which they credit “America first.” When dictatorial communism threatened the free world, the burden of freedom’s defense was taken up by “America first.” When people suffer from a natural or manmade disaster — be it famine, earthquake, tsunami, terrorism — they look for aid and support to “America first.”
I have seen firsthand the positive effects of America’s influence. As defense attache in Tunisia, I watched her people closely follow the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Afterward, numerous Tunisians told me, “We should be able to pick our leaders and change them like the Americans do.” It is not surprising that the Arab Spring began in Tunisia.
Just as importantly, Tunisian military leaders, many U.S.-trained and influenced by the American military, were committed not to the government, but to the law. When the popular demonstrations began, the military refused to use its might against its own citizens. Now, unlike in Libya or Syria, individual rights and the hope and promise of the Arab Spring remains alive and well in Tunisia.
Unfortunately, things have changed. Now, America’s primary representative to the world heaps admiration on a dictator in Russia who murders or imprisons anyone who criticizes him. He calls the strongman of the only secular, democratic, majority-Muslim country in NATO to congratulate him for winning a disputed referendum that cemented his autocratic rule and eroded his citizens’ civil liberties. He holds a “very friendly” conversation with a leader who employs death squads to commit thousands of extrajudicial murders and invites himto the White House.
At the same time, he picks fights with and insults America’s allies, including Australia (a country that has fought beside America in every one of our major wars in the 20th and 21st centuries), France (America’s first ally), Germany (which stood shoulder to shoulder with American troops facing down the Soviet Union), Canada (Canada. Really?). He even misrepresents the words of the mayor of London and criticizes him after his city suffered a terrorist attack.
While chastising our NATO allies at his first NATO summit, this representative of America refused to commit the same support to those allies that they unquestioningly provided to us when, after 9/11, they invoked for the first time Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which provides for the common defense. After two weeks of criticism, he finally agreedto stand by Article 5.
At home, this man heaps disdain on our independent judiciary and free press, both intended by the founders to be a bulwark in the defense and preservation of individual rights and freedoms.
In the course of my adult life and career, I have seen how our great American experiment in liberty, opportunity and self-government has inspired and improved the lives of countless millions of people throughout the world. For that reason, I’ve long been convinced that America is great and last year did not see the need to “make America great again.”
Now, truth has been supplanted by “alternative facts” (people I respect call them lies), informed debate has been replaced by bullying and ad hominem attacks, and moral courage seems to be going the way of the passenger pigeon.
America is at risk of abdicating her position as the world’s indispensable nation. I now realize that we the people of the United States of America, not the administration or our elected officials, must come together to keep America great. I pray it is not too late.
People invariably would tell me, “If I could live anywhere in the world, I’d pick ‘America first.”
Warren P. Gunderman is a retired Army intelligence colonel and Middle East/ North Africa foreign area officer. After 30 years overseas, he now lives in McCandless.