The Biden Administration is continuing their America Last policies, especially around national security and foreign policy this week. Last year, many proactive voices issued warnings and concerns about the details of the Afghanistan withdrawal and its implementation. The Administration’s poor decisions swiftly led to thirteen service-member deaths, a Fall of Kabul reminiscent of the Fall of Saigon but even more of an international embarrassment, and eerie scenes reminiscent of the Iran hostage crisis but without a President seemingly caring about the hundreds of American citizens left behind and still abandoned in a hostile land—hostile to their values and indifferent to international law and the rules of warfare.
Yesterday, the U.S. embassy in Kuwait advertised Pride Month just as many corporations, nonprofits, and government offices did in the United States. Had this been from a U.S. embassy in a country that embraced leftist social mores, this statement would have been pointless but harmless. However, the New York Young Republican Club strongly urges and cautions the Administration, and specifically State Department, not to make provocative statements intended to rile countries which host major US military bases and areas of operation.
Since the speedy and overwhelming victory in the liberation of Kuwait three decades ago, the United States military has had a productive partnership with its host country. But it is a host country, with their own sovereignty, cultural traditions, and worldview. And irrespective of the American point of view, toleration of homosexuality is not included in their worldview, and this statement by a US embassy endangers the lives of Americans.
Trying to export Western cultural values did not work with communist China, and it has not worked in the Middle East. “Democracy” did not magically spring up in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else where we have spent blood, sacrifice, and treasure in the post-Cold War era. In fact, there is hardly a country in the world that can claim a present-day tradition of constitutional self-governance, democracy, the rule of law, and ordered liberty outside of the Western tradition and its off-shoots.
This ill-conceived international activism has already been noted by the Kuwait Minister of Foreign Affairs, who called the U.S. Ambassador in and cited this violation of local laws and customs as an Article I violation of the Vienna Agreement for Diplomatic Relations (1961).
Kuwait, a pillar of area U.S. military operations, must remain a host country and not be a vassal state under U.S. military and cultural domination. This caution and warning we issue first and foremost out of concern for American servicemen and women whose lives could be endangered with the present Administration’s America Last and international universalist approach—one which is neither realistic, constructive, nor effectual. Let America be America and let Kuwait be Kuwait.
It is our view that, in this century, America must decide what we want to be to the world. If we aspire to be a crusader state for everyone while inflation and crime rise here at home, we’ll end up not being much of use to anyone—be they allies, friends, adversaries or anyone in between.