Why Imperialism Sucks-Part Whatever

Without any legitimate provocation, we saw Spain off from the Caribbean and Far East in the late Nineteenth Century.  What did we get out of it?

Not much.  Our attempt at a Cuban protectorate took kinda for a while, but is long gone.  The 

Philippines, we fought the Spanish, then the people and then the Japanese.  Now gone.  A few islands in the Pacific are still ours.  What a waste.

The reductio ad absurdum is Puerto Rico.  Puerto Ricans can be charming and upstanding people.  It is as unfair to stereotype a people as all good as all bad.  Suffice it to say, the Puerto Rican experiment has not been an unmitigated success.  Maybe not even a mitigated triumph.

Now we have a CNBC headline, 

Worsening Debt Crisis Threatens Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has as much debt per person as Detroit and we've had Detroit about twice as long.

And who does PR want to bail them out?

Thank God we didn't land troops in Libya.  A successful invasion would have meant a headline like the one above  hundred years hence.

Time to give into the Puerto Rican Independence movements, sans severance package.  Heck, time to start a Detroit independence movement.

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Eric "Bring the Boys Home" Margolis tells us what to do about the debt

Okay, to be honest, Mr. Margolis middle name is not Bring the Boys Home.  Still, his column leads in that direction.  He does not say bring all the boys and now some lasses home, but the logic is inescapable.

"The United States has no serious strategic enemies that can be identified."

Like duh.  As we always say at the Neutralist, the Middle Eastern countries ain't getting into carrier fleets to invade the lower the "Homeland."

there are elements that see themselves as our enemies, but if we don't let them in here, they will probably just bother their neighbors.

It's more of a "we have met the enemy and he is us" situation.  So much money being spent on what we can't afford.  The amount spent on the military benefits us in almost no way.

We need a military only to defend the US.  Our bloated defense establishment does us no good chasing poor tribesmen around some benighted backwater.

You can read the whole column here.

William S. Lind and our best policy in the Middle East-It's a Neutralist strategy

I used to read William S. Linds essays on strategy that that appeared at the Free Congress Foundation.  After they abruptly stopped, I read him whenever possible.  It has been mostly at The American Conservative.  He always makes sense, though the Neutralist is sure we can find something to disagree with if we try hard enough.

Not today, however.  Mr. Lind has written a thoroughly neutralist column at TAC.  The title says it all,

Islam’s Civil War

America can win it—by staying out.

Yup, as we've said before, they ain't jumping in their carrier fleets to invade our east coast.  

some have decried Mr. Lind's attitude as gloating.  I hope it is not.  I take no pleasure that Shia and Sunni will fight and kill each other.  May they find peace.  Still, facts are facts, and we, and they are better off without our attempts at managing it.

To read Mr. Lind, go here.  

He is now a fellow of the Neutralist Foundation whether he likes it or not.  If we can, we'll hit him up for dues.