Pacific Views

Standing Tall, or Presenting a Bigger Target?

Krauthammer says farewell to our allies. This seemed to be the nut of it:

...The hard fact is that war on many fronts is consuming and containing American power. While America spends blood and treasure in faraway places like Baghdad, China builds the economic and military superpower of the future. Europe knits itself into another continental colossus. And the rest of the world goes about its business. Meanwhile, the Americans take on the axis of evil one by one.

In the 1990s, containment of America took a different form. With the acquiescence of a Democratic Administration uncomfortable with American power, silk ropes were fashioned to tie down Gulliver: a myriad of treaties, protocols and prohibitions on everything from carbon emissions to land mines to nuclear testing. With the advent of the Bush Administration, contemptuous of these restraints, that would no longer work. Enter al-Qaeda. ...

In short: It's better to be constrained by the costs of war than the products of diplomacy, and you're all bastards for telling us it would turn out this way. Sticking to your guns is only an admirable trait in an American.

Posted by natasha at January 7, 2004 08:40 PM | TrackBack