Well, if you were shocked, as I was, by the photos from Abu Ghraib, this ought to jolt you back to reality. Although we have a few bad individuals who do bad things on our side, their side is made up entirely of very bad people who do very bad things.

I'm about to say "Screw the rest of the world. Look, we are now internationalists. We send guys halfway across the world to solve what are, at bottom, other people's problems. Other people don't seem to appreciate this. So why should we continue being internationalists?

Let's tear up the Al Qaeda / Saddam / Baath / PLO complex, as an example, so that no one even thinks about ever screwing with Americans again, and then go the hell home."

Foreign countries should be able to choose from three different statuses in American eyes: Allies (we support one another on everything; you MUST be basically a democracy, at, say, the level of Turkey or India), Neutrals (we don't necessarily support one another, but we don't get in each other's way), and Enemies (do what you want at home but don't touch us or our allies). That way, say, France, could become a Neutral and not have to pretend to be an Ally anymore. We wouldn't interfere with them in anything, and they wouldn't do so with us.

I imagine few countries would want to be Allies, maybe not even Canada and almost certainly not Mexico. Britain and Australia would of course be in if they wanted, as would the Eastern Europeans and the Taiwanese. Israel would certainly be in. Japan would probably sign on. Most of Old Europe wouldn't, with the possible exception of the NATO Nordics, Holland, Norway, and Denmark (they were all liberated by US/UK troops and have long memories). I imagine the Iraqi Kurds would be Allies.

What I am in favor of is an end to useless efforts at diplomacy and further fucking around, dicking off, and jacking about. Let's either state flat-out, "We are going to stay in Iraq until we have killed or captured every last terrorist," do it, and then pull out, or pull out after the elections on September 30 give us an excuse to--and when I say "pull out", I mean pull all the way out. Like, for instance, there will be no more American warships in the Persian Gulf to guarantee Europe and Asia's oil supply. We don't need Middle East oil. (In 2001 we imported about 27% of the energy we used, according to the Economist.)The transition to purchasing exclusively Allied or Neutral energy supplies and augmenting domestic production will take some time and be bumpy, but I don't see why we can't make our way through it if we accept a slightly lower standard of living for a couple of years or so.

HIC JACET AMERICAN INTERNATIONALISM (1917-1919; 1941-2004)