Freedom's Fidelity

Sunday, May 30, 2004

America, Rescue Thyself!

This should make Pat Buchanan happy. P.J. O'Rourke says that for America, isolationism is still an option:

John Kerry says America shouldn't cut and run. George Bush says America mustn't. But we don't have to retreat ignominiously from the war on terrorism and from our other international responsibilities and commitments; we can recuse ourselves. We can explain to the court of global public opinion that, because America possesses the largest economy, the widest network of business relationships, and the only effective military force on earth, we have too great a vested interest in world events to render fair and impartial judgment. On every issue of geopolitical adjudication, from 9/11 to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, America is a jury of cops and crime victims. A change in venire has already been called for by noisy street protestors, France and suchlike. Let's accede to the pre-emptory challenge and go home.

The benefits will be immediate. We can cut $300 billion from our defense budget. This will be almost enough to pay for the aging baby boomers' prescription drug benefits, which can now include Levitra, Botox and medicinal cannabis.

America will enjoy cleaner air and less traffic congestion as oil goes to $200 a barrel due to chaos in the Middle East. A U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East will cause chaos, of course. Then again, a U.S. intervention in the Middle East has caused chaos already. And, during those periods of history when the U.S. was neither intervening in nor withdrawing from the Middle East, there was . . . chaos. The situation is akin to the famous complaint women have against men: failure to acknowledge that not every problem can be fixed. Sometimes the best thing is just a little sympathy. America had everyone's sympathy after the World Trade towers were attacked. We can get that sympathy back if we limit our foreign policy objectives to whining.

Of course this is P.J. O'Rourke so he's got his tongue placed firmly in his cheek, but I don't think an old dimwitted fuddy duddy like Buchanan would catch it. Keep hope alive though, O'Rourke may be on to something. In the final paragraph of the column he speculates on the positive benefits that a policy of isolationism may rain down upon the good old US of A. Read the whole thing, as they say. Just maybe it would happen.

Sidenote:

(via InstaPundit) Michael Totten administers a proper fisking to Pat Buchanan that is worth reading. My favorite line:

"Sexual emancipation is our doctrine. I couldn't care less that he and his old-right reactionary pals here and in the Middle East haven't even caught up to the sixties yet. The radical left may be stuck in the 60s, but geez, at least they got there."

posted by Paul  permalink | |