That Afghanistan would have spent the next ten years knocking statues down and killing women and ignoring the West.

I can't think of a soul here that said going after the Taliban was wrong, Left or Right.

In fact, world opinion was pretty much with us on that one. The problem is, after chasing them into Pakistan, we got bored of the nation-building process and moved on to the next demolition project. Do one thing, do it well, finish it, then move on to the next thing. Who knows? If we had done the job in Afghanistan that we say we're going to do in Iraq, we might be faced with an entirely different situation -- like not occupying two countries at once. Ah, but my crystal ball hasn't been polished lately, so I can't say for sure.

Tell me, please, who was hollering about the statues and the murdered women before 9/11? It sure wasn't the Republican leadership. It was a bunch of First Amendment junkies (for the religious aspect of the statues), the art freaks (for their aesthetic value), and the feminists. None of these groups is well-known for being dominated by the Right, though I have no doubt that some conservatives saw these actions as dangerous and indicative of greater potential danger.

The Republican leadership isn't concerned about statues of heathen religious figures, and the entire government was strangely silent about the plight of Afghani women. So the fundamentalist tyrants there remained unchallenged and grew in hubris with each passing day.

It took an attack on America to provoke the Right. And now there's smiting going on in all directions. Making up for past negligence, I suppose.

The Democratic school of foreign policy, that if we just stick our heads far enough up our own asses, that no bad guys will be able to see us, appeals to some people.

Yes. They're called "radical isolationists". As if we can hide behind our oceans now... The Chinese are making our freakin' computer components.

Regards--
Mary Anne