Lions Club Speech First Drift

World Lit 10/02/2011

Leo Liu

The first president of the United State George Washington stated in his Farewell Address "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world..." ( Washington George). He advised that in order for the young nation to stand with other nations who have much longer history in this world, United State needs to focus on strengthening itself instead of getting involve in other country's business with unnecessary cost. Nowadays the United State is able to stand at the top of the world with its strongest economy, technology and military. The main reason is because American used their very valuable time and money strengthens their economy and develops their own homeland while European countries were still fighting in the stalemates due to their alliances. However in the past half century, US government keeps getting involved in other nation's affair. Every time the US government has gotten involved in other countries' battles, they have sacrificed U.S. soldiers' lives needlessly, caused US relationship to foreign countries to deteriorate, and in the majority of battles that US have gotten involved in, it has failed to reach their goals. The fact shows that America should not intervene in other countries' affairs, choosing instead to practice neutrality.

US has wasted a huge amount of money with numerous unnecessary casualties due to other countries' civil wars while fail to reach its final goal. For example, in 1963 in order to prevent North Vietnam under communism government from uniting the whole Vietnam, US sent troops to support South Vietnam. During Vietnam War there were 2.6 million military personnel served on active duty. Of the 2.6 million, between 1 and 1.6 million either fought in the front, provide close combat support or fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack. About 58000 soldiers lost their lives overseas. In addition to that another 75000 soldiers fought in the war were severely disabled and the US has totally 35000 casualties. These soldiers fought bravely for their country in the battles for a very meaningless reason. US fought this war only because of the hostility toward communism. Worse still, at last US failed to reach its goal. On April 29 to April 30 morning 1975 US army retreated from Vietnam due to the pressure from anti war parties. On January 2nd Northern Vietnam united the whole Vietnam the goal of the US government totally vanished. The money and lives that US spent on this war became worthless. A lot of historians could argue that US fought this war for bringing democracy to Vietnam. However even nowadays, few Vietnam would feel thankful toward US to that meaningless war.

Just like the result of Vietnam War, US actually deteriorate the relationship with other countries after it got involve in their affairs. In order to protect American founding ideals and humanity US keeps acting like a big brother in the world. Those undeveloped countries become their first targets to provide their kindness. However, the fact shows that most of the time US is not welcomed by either local government or people