"The sight of American flags being ripped to shreds and burned by mobs has become so common over there we seem almost to have gotten used to it"
Sunday, September 16, 2012 at 03:28AM |
Pat Buchanan: Is it not long past time to do a cost-benefit analysis of our involvement in the Middle and Near East? In this brief century alone, we have fought the two longest wars in our history there, put our full moral authority behind an "Arab Spring" that brought down allies in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, and provided the air power that saved Benghazi and brought down Moammar Gadhafi. Yet this week U.S. embassies were under siege in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, and U.S. diplomats were massacred in Benghazi. The cost of our two wars is 6,500 dead, 40,000 wounded and $2 trillion piled onto a national debt that is $16 trillion, larger than the entire U.S. economy. And what in heaven's name do we have to show for it? We face pandemic hatred of our country from Morocco to Pakistan. The sight of American flags being ripped to shreds and burned by mobs has become so common over there we seem almost to have gotten used to it. [MORE] |