Even if they throw one cocktail party a night, that can't possibly add up to a whole lot, unless they invite delegates from Russia and Scandinavia, in which case the booze budget must be quadrupled.  

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

Just throw them out of your country! Every right-thinking American knows UN sucks. You didn't need them for cover during Korean War, you don't need them to provide troops in 17 countries today and countless others in past. 1,731 deaths doesn't add up to hill of beans. US doesn't need friends, just countries who know they had better suck up to Number One or else. Learn anything from Iraq? Of course not, you won! On to Tehran! On to Pakistan!

Don't let wimps kid you. US could send troops everywhere UN presently has them with no sweat.

That would include Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sudan, Western Sahara, Haiti, India, Pakistan, Timor-Leste, Cyprus, Georgia, Serbia, the Golan Heights, Lebanon, and various other Mideast ceasefires and hot spots. And they would all welcome you with open arms, like Iraqis did in 2003.

Oh, wait, that was just places where UN still has troops today. There were dozens of others over last 40 years. If not for your damned hippies, you could have troops everywhere, all at once. How much could it possibly cost? How many casualties could there possibly be?

US out of UN, and UN out of US! You don't need to talk to anyone, just show them your big guns and wait for everyone to swoon.

Yeah, the UN peacekeepers are doing a bang-up job in Sudan. Their presence alone is preventing a genocide!Or at least, preventing a "genocide," because the ethnicity-based killing is still going on in job lots, but the UN determined that doesn't qualify as "genocide" this time because that would be an embarrassment to the UN. Silly Sudanese! If they really wanted UN support, they should have moved to West Bank and called themselves Palestinians.

Yeah, and NATO peacekeepers are doing a bang-up job in Afghanistan. Their presence alone stands between Muslim extremist rule and ... well, different Muslim extremist rule. They sure have Taliban on run. But when US screws up some war, or when NATO screws up some war, laughing at them would be unpatriotic, wouldn't it? Like your wonderful President Reagan would say, US doesn't lose any war until it gives up. No strategy can be so bad, no war so inherently pointless, that throwing another half trillion at it can't be justified. But paying UN dues, or providing support to UN troops? Crazy, man. Those people? Lame. Not like Americans. You always win.    

There is a third option, besides the ones you present, of either the UN keeping the peace (or at least attempting to do so) throughout the world, or the US taking on that task all by itself.  The US could also, at least in theory, revert to its former foreign policy (originating with George Washington) of isolationism, and withdraw from the UN while also withdrawing its own troops from all foreign conflicts and bases, keeping them within the US, to repel foreign invasions or suppress internal revolution as may be needed.  There is no vital reason why the US has to protect South Korea from invasion by North Korea, or why the US has to prop up the Karzai regime in Afghanistan, suppress civil war in Iraq, create a buffer zone on the Golan Heights, etc.  It would be possible to simply let every country seek its own destiny and fight its own wars if they must (although, peace is always the better option, when possible).  

The US could still be prepared to respond to any direct attack on the US itself.  Such an attack did occur, just six and a half years ago on September 11th, but I would say that the US has already made a very convincing counter-attack even though not all the guilty parties have as yet been accounted for (and bin Laden continues to release annoying messages).  That fight does not have to continue in perpetuity.  And in the nuclear age, the US does not really have to send troops anywhere if it doesn't want to, it can always send missiles instead, although that is a somewhat indiscriminate form of retaliation.  In that sense, the US doesn't really need to have troops stationed all over the world in order to be able to more easily project its conventional military power.  It can project other, deadlier forms of military power, if necessary.

Isolationism as a policy would be incredibly less expensive than the current interventionism.  And after all, the US really does not have either the obligation, or even the resources, needed to police the entire world.  It is attempting to do so, and is going bankrupt in the process (morally as well as financially, as it happens).

Genuinely isolationist foreign policy does represent third option, but when you tried that after World War I it didn't last even one generation. Powerful countries seldom can detach themselves completely from world affairs, although China would provide one potential counterpoint. But China presents unfortunate example. Chinese unwillingness to reach out across Pacific in 15th and 16th centuries, leaving field to Europeans, resulted in China becoming dramatically weaker for several centuries, falling behind European empires even in commercial and technological prowess in which they had led for over 1,000 years.

Present US commercial empire dominates North America, western Europe, Oceania, and much of eastern Asia. As much as 2/3rds of world economic production may originate in countries where US holds sway. If US simply pulls back to its borders, in Libertarian fashion, you will effectively create alternate world powers (EU and Japan directly and Russia, China, and India indirectly) that may not do things on world stage in manner you would approve of. Worse, with multiple new world powers trying to figure out how much power they should be exercising on world stage, potential for world conflicts would increase dramatically, threatening to pull US in just as World War II eventually pulled US in.

No doubt isolationism would be incredibly less expensive than interventionism, or even supporting UN multilateralism, at least at first. But if world started to go to hell in handbasket, money you saved by withdrawing from world would look like chickenfeed compared to money you would have to spend to preserve your way of life under much more difficult circumstances.

I find your comment a bit ironic, when you tell me that "if (the) world started to go to hell in a hand basket, (the) money you saved by withdrawing from the world would look like chickenfeed...)" since it appears to me that the world is already going to hell in a hand basket (aside from the fact that I am hardly a spokesperson for the US, so it is not really me whose possible withdrawal from military interventionism is being discussed).

It is obviously true that if the US does not diligently manage, or attempt to manage, the affairs of all the other countries in the world, then it is possible that those other countries may, as you say, do things in a manner of which the US will not approve.  But so what?  It is not really necessary for other countries to do things in the manner of which the US approves as long as they do not actually attack the US.  You mention that the US was drawn into WW II despite its desire to avoid that conflict, but that happened because of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Short of a military attack against the US, it really doesn't matter if other countries do things their own way.  That is their privilege, as autonomous nations.

The only entity which has any real justification to act as some kind of international guiding force superior to national governments is the UN, and the UN can only function with the consent of its members (or at least, the consent of the Security Council).  For the US to act as if it were a world police force or a world government all by itself, really isn't working.  The US has neither the moral authority nor the wealth and troop strength for such ambitious undertakings.

Of course, there is a middle ground between total isolationism and total interventionism.  The US could intervene very selectively where it's interests are most vitally concerned.  That is probably a more reasonable course of action, provided that the US is actually capable of being reasonable about it, which is far from clear.  But on the whole, I think that the US would do very well to cut back heavily on its current interventionist policies.

While I certainly agree that US would be well advised to cut back on its current interventionist policies, I would also suggest that it gains substantially from cooperating with other countries in keeping world peace through UN action, which was my actual point to begin with. US position within UN, including its Security Council veto, gives it great leverage around entire world, and it would be foolish to simply give that leverage up entirely just because conservatives feel ornery.

You say that "it appears to me that the world is already going to hell in a hand basket", but US problems have been mostly of its own device. You no longer have existential enemies of stature and power of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan or U.S.S.R. You mostly shoot buckshot at flies and then complain about powder burns.

Consider what would happen if US had no role to play at all. Should Saddam Hussein have been permitted to create Arab Empire by conquering Kuwait, then Saudi Arabia, then other parts of Arab world? Many Arabs would have been better off unified under one government, even if ruler of that government was considered brutal and ruthless dictator. Similarly, should countries in Africa be encouraged to erase boundaries created by European imperialists, regrouping based on military power and tribal cohesion? Again, many Africans might be better off. But if that sort of thing starts to happen, you invite replay of 1930s, this time across much of 3rd world instead of in Europe and East Asia.

Yes, "there is a middle ground between total isolationism and total interventionism", and that should be path US chooses. Intervention should be last resort rather than first resort (as most Democrats seem to say these days), but it cannot be abandoned in its entirety without US committing itself to watch from sidelines with hands folded next time genocidal warfare breaks out in places like Rwanda or Sudan.

One may well wonder whether it would really have been good or bad for the Arab nations to allow Saddam Hussein to pursue the expansionist program that he began with the annexation of Kuwait (and we don't really know for certain that he would have gone on to annex any other countries, although the probability seems to be that he would have, had the UN not intervened against him in 1991).  One may also wonder whether the nations of Africa should be allowed to erase existing national borders in order to find some better form of organization than the one which was imposed upon them by European colonial powers.  However, as I mentioned in my previous comment, that is not really the issue.  These nations have the RIGHT to make their own decisions and to seek their own destiny, it is not the business of the US to decide what is good for them and to enforce those decisions by military force.  

The UN does have the authority to intervene, but again, only when there is a clear international consensus.  It is perfectly true that by annexing Kuwait, Iraq violated the most fundamental requirement of the UN charter (a charter which, let us not forget, had been signed by Iraq).  The UN was specifically created to prevent that kind of aggression.  Even so, in retrospect, the US and the world in general are paying a terrible price for the long-term consequences of that intervention.  Had the world simply accepted the annexation of Kuwait, there would not have followed the long and bitter dispute about Iraq's failure to comply with the terms of the cease-fire, which ultimately motivated the current war.  

And even if Iraq wound up gobbling up the entire middle east, it is not at all clear that this would really be a bad thing, as you comment.  One large despotic empire is not necessarily worse than many small despotic regimes.  Of course, if the new Iraqi Caliphate then went to war with Europe, we would regret having allowed matters to come to such a pass.  But all of this is extremely speculative.  Any course of action can be imagined to ultimately have disastrous consequences, if one really wants to arrive at such conclusions, but it is often (although not always!) better to wait and see what actually does happen, rather than acting on the basis of speculative disasters that may be coming.  

With respect to Hussein's intentions, remember that prior to his invasion of Kuwait he invaded Iran in hope of taking control of its oil assets in its southwestern territories, which were and remain to this day largely inhabited by Arabs. There can't be much doubt that had he succeeded in either Iran or Kuwait, he would have eventually moved on to Saudi Arabia and Gulf States, and in process taken control of major portion of entire world's oil. With that oil, which presumably would have then escalated substantially in price, he could have built up substantial military forces of all sorts. Saying that maybe he would have gone to war with Europe but maybe he wouldn't have misses different sort of point, namely whether US really should sit idly by while major world power ruled by dictator gets created by force. Do you really want to face another Nazi Germany  or another Imperial Japan or another U.S.S.R. and hope they mean well? Do you want to face same decisions Roosevelt faced in 1940 and 1941, with US freedom or even existence on line?

Yes, it seems clear to me, as to you, that US has gone too far in its interventionism, both in Iraq and in general. But lessons learned by your grandparents haven't become entirely irrelevant. Today US faces no serious enemies, nothing to compare with enemies of recent past. Why give that position up if you don't have to? Because your leadership has gotten infected with imperial militarism? You can tame them, if you want to, with your votes.

Other nations, in exercise of their sovereignty, have "right" to attack you also. Sensible foreign policy minimises chances of that happening. UN assists in process of holding down incipient threats to existing (relatively benign) world order. No one should be allowed to forget that.  

Sure, we must not forget the lessons learned by our grandparents.  Indeed, we must not forget all the lessons of history, extending back for many thousands of years.  And there are all sorts of different lessons to learn.  We have learned that sometimes it is a terrible mistake NOT to go to war, a mistake which was made when the Nazis were rising to power and nobody wanted to get in their way, and we have also learned that sometimes going to war is the mistake, when we really had nothing to gain thereby, as in the case of the ridiculously misguided Vietnamese War.  So it's not just a matter of remembering the lessons of history, we also have to identify exactly WHICH lesson we should be applying.  

And remember, the US never did go to war with its most terrible enemy, the USSR (only fighting regional wars by proxy) and yet the USSR was defeated anyway.  Hence, the US was absolutely correct, and vindicated by history, in its decision not to go to war with the USSR and start WW III, which would have been catastrophic beyond all previous catastrophes had it happened.

It is quite true that the potential empire that Saddam Hussein might have eventually created, had the world not intervened to reverse the annexation of Kuwait, might have been very large and powerful, and might have dominated the international oil trade, but that is not necessarily a worse situation than the one we have now.  Civil war in Iraq has largely crippled the Iraqi oil industry, at a time when the global economy desperately needs greater oil production.  And as I said before, it remains purely speculative that this empire of greater Iraq, or the Saddam Caliphate as it would likely have become known, would have ever chosen to go to war with the western world.  Let us remember, there are several nuclear powers in Europe.  Attacking Europe would be suicidal for anybody.  Even Saddam Hussein, who was not a reasonable man, was probably not that crazy.

And you know what?  Even though the US did dutifully go to war against Saddam in 1991, it was still attacked on September 11th 2001, which suggests that the effort to safeguard America was not entirely well thought-out.  You claim that America has no powerful enemies today, but its relatively weak enemies are doing a lot of damage.  Something is wrong with this picture.  Interventionism is not working.

The question of tariff reform must be urged through the organization known as the Democratic Party, and the question of protection with the reciprocity must be forced to view through the Republican Party. By thus dividing voters, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us, except as teachers to the common herd.

Don't you see????????? Your whole argument is just a sham!! Both sides!!!!

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Quoting from "Banker's Manifesto of 1892" makes almost as much sense as quoting from "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion". Even Ron Paul has more recent stuff to serve as grist for his hatred of Federal Reserve System.