zbert's Blog

Poor LIBERAL YankeeFan can't answer a simple, honest question, so first she uses insults to cover up for her ignorance and then just deletes the question.

Sounds like a typical big-government socialist type.

YankeeFan posted a letter with no credit given to the author. Rightly assuming her to be the author, I asked a followup question. SHe immediately denied being the author. That was her first defense. Then she went into a tyrade of insults against me.

I want the troops to come home safe. If the job is done, as she posted, then why are they still there? A simple question. I didn't say anything against the government, the troops, or her. I just asked a question.

She claims to want to clear up misunderstanding of what is going on over there. I gave her the perfect chance, and she responded in a vicious attack. Then DaytonaFrank and Hawkeye joined in. Three big-government socialists afraid to face the truth.

If they are afraid of my little, innocent question, then they must know what they are saying is a lie.

I give you one more chance, YankeeFan, without insults and attacks, tell me:

If the Iraqi government is taking control and the electricity is back on and normal citizens are driving around in expensive cars and building expensive houses, why are we still there?

Please answer politely.  I am asking politely. You claim to be speaking for the troops.

Raised on welfare, the 'Why Bother?' generation that doesn't want to work
By BENEDICT BROGAN

A "why bother?" economy has been created in Britain which has left thousands with no motivation to work, a report published today concludes.

Successive governments have encouraged a welfare culture that has left every family facing a £1,300 bill because the poor stay poor, it claims.

The findings by the public services think tank Reform suggest that increased welfare dependency has made it more difficult for those on the lowest incomes to do better.

An education system with a "dismal record" of educating the poorest, and a complex welfare system, have together created a far more divided society than other European countries, it finds.

Means-tested benefits and higher taxes have reduced the incentives available to those on low incomes to better themselves, Reform says.

It concludes: "The unintended consequence has been a 'why bother?' economy in which a significant minority do not have the capability or motivation to succeed."

The report finds that social mobility has not improved since the 1970s, despite substantial increases in benefits-Compared to other industrial countries the UK has an above-average number of the low-skilled relying on state handouts, which reduces the economy's productivity.

Reform concludes that if the UK had the skills levels of the U.S. the benefit to the economy would be £32billion per year, or £1,300 per family.

And it points out that inequalities in the tax system mean that those receiving welfare who find work face punitive rates of taxation as for every extra pound earned they lose up to 90 per cent of their benefit.

Professor Nick Bosanquet, Reform's consultant director, said: "Social mobility is a vital economic issue, not just an equity issue.

"We need to look at new ways of making it happen in this much tougher economic environment.

"Every person failed by the education system and held back by the tax and benefits system means that the economy cannot fulfil its potential."

Publication of the report coincides with one from the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies which calls for a major overhaul of Gordon Brown's beleaguered tax credit system to provide better incentives for those on benefit to find work.

It calls for replacing the current "piecemeal" benefits system with a single programme which would give more to those who work, but less to those who do not.

The Mail highlighted the problem of those refusing to work last month, meeting families in which not one member has worked for three generations.

The grandmother matriarch of one, Sue McFadden,54, said: "Our neighbours are so snobby - they call us the 'Shameless' family and say that we ought to go out to work. But how can we work when we have all these children to look after?"

American taxpayers have unwittingly helped finance a polygamist sect that is now the focus of a massive child abuse investigation in West Texas, with a business tied to the group receiving a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts. The ability of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, to operate and grow is largely dependent on huge contributions from its members and revenue from the businesses they control, according to a former accountant for the church, and government officials in Utah and Arizona, where the sect is primarily based. One of those businesses, NewEra Manufacturing in Las Vegas, has been awarded more than $1.2 million in federal government contracts, with most of the money coming in recent years from the Defense Department for wheel and brake components for military aircraft. A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or "sole source" contracts because of the company's classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations. NewEra, previously known as Western Precision Inc. and located in Hildale, Utah, also received a $900,000 loan in 2005 from the federal Small Business Administration, the data show. The president and chief executive of the company is John. C. Wayman, identified as an FLDS leader and a close associate to Warren Jeffs, the sect's "prophet," who was convicted last year as an accomplice to rape for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin. When Jeffs, who was one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the summer of 2006, he was driving Wayman's late-model red Cadillac Escalade, government officials say. Wayman did not return phone calls seeking comment. On NewEra's Web site Wayman says the company is "an honorable and valuable asset to our country" in helping build military and commercial airplanes that carry people throughout the world. He does not mention its ties to the FLDS. Steve Barlow, human resources manager for NewEra, said last week that it would be inappropriate to comment, "Given everything that's going on. I could only give you the company motto: 'Good parts on time.'. " U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the Fort Worth Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee that deals with issues of defense, military and homeland security, said she is surprised that the federal government is doing business with a group accused of mistreating women and children. "It makes me very uneasy," Granger said. "It needs to be investigated without a doubt." To begin with, she added, federal authorities should look into NewEra's financial records. John Nielsen, who worked for the company when it was Western Precision in Hildale, said in a 2005 affidavit that he and other FLDS members were made to work for little or no wages, even as the company was bringing in lucrative government contracts and other work. At the same time, $50,000 to $100,000 in company profits were going each month to FLDS "and/or" Jeffs, Nielsen said in the affidavit, filed as part of a civil lawsuit. He said he and other sect members thought their working for free or for extremely low wages would bring them redemption. Instead, Nielsen said in the affidavit, he was found to be "wanting" by the sect's leadership, ordered off the property and separated from his five young children and his wife. She was "reassigned" to another man, becoming the fourth of his six wives. "It broke my heart," Nielsen said in the affidavit. He declined to comment when reached by phone Friday. In Texas, authorities raided the FLDS' sprawling YFZ Ranch near Eldorado on April 3, beginning an exhaustive search of its 1,691 acres. Authorities were acting on a tip from a 16-year-old girl inside the compound who said she had been beaten and raped by a 50-year-old man whom she was forced to marry. Since then, a state district court judge has ordered the removal of 416 children, many of them young girls who have children or are pregnant after forced encounters with their "spiritual" husbands in the sect's towering white limestone temple, officials say. "There's a lot of bad BLEEP in there," said a high-ranking official with the federal Justice Department who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case. On Tuesday, the Justice Department executed a sealed FBI search warrant at the ranch. While the men of the sect have held close rein on their "plural wives" and children, seldom allowing them to associate with the outside world, the male leaders have fanned out into successful public business ventures. They work as government defense contractors, dairy farmers, engineers, construction contractors, log-cabin homebuilders and suppliers of lanyards, the cords used on eyeglasses or nametags. In addition, JNJ Engineering, a company owned and operated by FLDS leaders, has made millions of dollars in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in September. The company won $11.3 million in contract work from the Las Vegas Valley Water District; all but one of the project workers came from the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz., where most of the sect's 10,000 members live. Jethro Barlow, a former accountant for the FLDS whom Warren Jeffs excommunicated in 2003, said Jeffs ordered sect members, their families and the companies they operated to "give till it hurts.... "And people did." Jeffs was able to rally church members to tithe heavily, even if it hurt them financially, because he had convinced them that they had to prepare for the end of the world, Barlow said. The fever-pitched preparation continued, even after several apocalyptic deadlines had passed. It motivated the rapid construction of the temple at the YFZ Ranch and the erection there of manufactured cabin-like homes made by sect members in Canada, he said. Barlow, who remains in Hildale, said he believes he and his family were kicked out of the FLDS because they were not among the favored ones in Jeffs' flock. Although Jeffs is now behind bars, sect members still consider him their leader and prophet, said Bruce Wisan, a nonmember appointed by the state of Utah to replace Jeffs as manager of a the FLDS' trust. Established in 1942 to "preserve and advance the religious doctrines" of the church, it is now estimated to be worth between $100 million and $150 million. Under Jeffs' direction, Wisan said, sect households are required to tithe at least 10 percent of their gross income to the church, plus an extra $1,000 a month. Tim Bodily, an assistant attorney over the tax division of the Utah attorney general's office, said Wisan has received little cooperation from those within the sect, which has traditionally shown distrust for outsiders. "He's been provided no records at all, and no one inside the organization has provided any inside knowledge. ... It's a very difficult thing to do," Bodily said. "Progress moves slow when dealing with these people. Texas has its hands full."

Douglas is a staff writer with the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. McClatchy Newspapers 2008

By Simon Kennedy and John Brinsley

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Finance chiefs from the Group of Seven nations signaled concern on the dollar's slide and said the global economic slowdown may worsen amid an ``entrenched'' credit squeeze.

``Since our last meeting, there have been at times sharp fluctuations in major currencies, and we are concerned about their possible implications for economic and financial stability,'' the G-7's finance ministers and central bankers said in a statement after talks in Washington yesterday.

The officials downgraded their outlook for the world economy from that of two months ago, blaming the U.S. housing recession, credit-market turmoil, commodity prices and inflation pressures. The dollar has lost 8 percent against the euro and 6 percent versus the yen since the G-7 last met in Tokyo in February.

``They ratcheted up the currency rhetoric a notch or so,'' said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. ``They're trying to buy some time for the dollar.''

The new language was the first significant change in the G- 7's view of currencies since a February 2004 meeting in Boca Raton, Florida. The U.S. currency reached a record low of $1.5913 against the euro this week.

Monitoring Markets

``We continue to monitor exchange markets closely, and cooperate as appropriate,'' the G-7 said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the change in the G-7 statement on currencies ``reflects market developments and changes in the markets.'' He also said he told the G-7 ``in very strong terms our commitment to a strong dollar.''

``They're trying to discreetly throw a lifeline to the dollar,'' said Sophia Drossos, a currency strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York, who used to help manage the Federal Reserve's foreign-exchange holdings. ``Had they not said anything, the dollar would have resumed its sell-off. This acknowledges there has been increased volatility.''

Policy makers laid out a 100-day plan to strengthen regulation of capital markets. They urged financial companies to ``fully'' disclose in their mid-year earnings reports their investments at risk of loss. Firms should also establish ``fair value estimates'' for the complex assets that investors have shunned and boost their capital as needed, the G-7 said.

`Entrenched' Turmoil

``The turmoil in global financial markets remains entrenched and more protracted than we had anticipated,'' the officials said in their statement. ``Near-term global economic prospects have weakened.''

The G-7 pledged to implement further monetary and fiscal policies ``as appropriate'' without giving details.

The officials met after the International Monetary Fund this week estimated a 25 percent chance of a global recession this year. A collapse in the market for U.S. subprime mortgages has pushed the U.S. toward its first contraction in seven years and prompted banks to shun lending after $245 billion of asset writedowns and credit losses since the start of 2007.

While the dollar's drop has helped support the U.S. economy by boosting exports, its acceleration triggered criticism from officials abroad worried that their own shipments may be hurt.

``We don't like the recent moves,'' Luxembourg Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads a group of counterparts from the euro area, told reporters in Washington. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the dollar's drop ``has been borne primarily by the Canadian dollar and also by the euro and the yen.''

Skepticism

The G-7 may fail to reverse the dollar's slump because there's no sign it's willing to intervene and the U.S. economy is weaker than its counterparts, said Samarjit Shankar, director of global strategy for the foreign exchange group at Bank of New York Mellon in Boston.

The Fed has tried to avert recession by cutting its benchmark interest rate 3 percentage points since August, yet the European Central Bank has left its unchanged at a six-year high of 4 percent amid inflation at a 16-year high.

``Growth differentials are still stacked up against the dollar and since there's no sign whatsoever that the group is about to intervene, that clears the way for further dollar weakness,'' said Shankar, who predicted the dollar will reach $1.60 per euro.

China's Yuan

The G-7 again urged China to allow ``accelerated appreciation'' in its currency, while acknowledging its recent rise through 7 per dollar for the first time since a fixed exchange rate ended in 2005.

The group pledged ``rapid implementation'' of recommendations from the Basel-based Financial Stability Forum published yesterday. The FSF report aims at increasing transparency and cooperation among international bank supervisors.

In the next 100 days, the G-7 demanded that regulators revise liquidity risk management rules, improve accounting standards for off-balance-sheet units and enhance guidance on how assets are fairly valued.

With the credit squeeze now in its ninth month, the G-7 highlighted ``downside risks'' to growth in a ``challenging and uncertain environment.''

Since the G-7 met in February, Bear Stearns Cos. was rescued by JPMorgan Chase & Co. with the help of the Fed, U.S. employers cut jobs for a third month and the price of oil and other commodities reached record highs.

`Very Tough'

``March was a very, very tough month,'' Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chief Financial Officer Erin Callan said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday. General Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt said ``the last two weeks in March were a different world in financial services.''

Other than promising to ensure ``orderly'' financial markets, the central bankers and finance ministers stopped short of introducing new measures to boost liquidity, even as the cost of borrowing euros and dollars for three months holds at the highest since December. The group said previous efforts by some central banks to bolster liquidity were ``helping.''

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said she hoped the warning from the Group of Seven nations against ``sharp fluctuations'' in currencies will strengthen the dollar.

``I hope this concerted wording on currencies will help,'' she said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Washington yesterday when asked how worried she was by the dollar's slide.

Bankers' Dinner

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government recently stepped up complaints that the euro's appreciation against the dollar is pushing France-based companies, including planemaker European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., to cut jobs at home and relocate some activities abroad.

Composed of the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the U.K. and Canada, the G-7 oversees two-thirds of the world economy. Its officials dined last night with 10 executives from financial companies, including Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann, Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld and Credit Suisse Group chief Brady Dougan.

To contact the reporters on this story: Simon Kennedy in Washington at skennedy4@bloomberg.netJohn Brinsley in Washington at jbrinsley@bloomberg.net

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press WriterFri Apr 11, 7:12 PM ET

The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday.

A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government's laboratory.

The accidents are significant because the administration is likely to move foot-and-mouth research from the remote island to one of five sites on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. This has raised concerns about the risks of a catastrophic outbreak of the disease, which does not sicken humans but can devastate the livestock industry.

Skeptical Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee demanded to see internal documents from the administration that they believe highlight the risks and consequences of moving the research. The live virus has been confined to Plum Island for more than a half-century to keep it far from livestock.

The 1978 accidental release "resulted in the FMD virus in some of the cattle in holding pens outside the laboratory facility," Jay Cohen, a senior Homeland Security official, wrote in response to the committee.

"Detailed precautions were taken immediately to prevent the spread of the disease from Plum Island, and new precautionary procedures were introduced."

Cohen, undersecretary for science and technology, said there also have been "in-laboratory incidents" — contamination of foot-and-mouth virus within the facility but not outside it — at Plum Island since 1954. That was the year the Agriculture Department acquired the land and started the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

One government report, produced last year and already provided to lawmakers by the Homeland Security Department, combined commercial satellite images and federal farm data to show the proximity to livestock herds of locations that have been considered for the new lab.

"Would an accidental laboratory release at these locations have the potential to affect nearby livestock?" asked the nine-page document. It did not directly answer the question.

A simulated outbreak of the disease in 2002 — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

"It was a mess," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who portrayed the president in that 2002 exercise. Now, like other lawmakers from the states under consideration, Roberts supports moving the government's new lab to his state. Manhattan, Kan., is one of five mainland locations under consideration. "It will mean jobs" and spur research and development, he says.

Other possible locations for the new National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility are Athens, Ga.; Butner, N.C.; San Antonio; and Flora, Miss. The new site could be selected later this year, and the lab would open by 2014. The number of livestock in the counties and surrounding areas of the finalists range from 542,507 in Kansas to 132,900 in Georgia, according to the Homeland Security Department's internal study.

Foot-and-mouth virus can be carried on a worker's breath or clothes, or vehicles leaving a lab, and is so contagious it has been confined to Plum Island since the research began. The existing lab is 100 miles northeast of New York City in the Long Island Sound. Researchers there who work with the live virus are not permitted to own animals at home that would be susceptible, and they must wait at least one week after work before attending outside events where such animals might perform, such as a circus.

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also are worried about the lab's likely move to the mainland. Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and the head of the investigations subcommittee, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., also demanded reports about "Crimson Sky" and other studies on the consequences of live virus research on the U.S. mainland. Cohen, the Homeland Security official, said those documents were provided.

Two lawmakers from New York, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Timothy Bishop, both Democrats, expressed concerns in letters they wrote last year about the Homeland Security Department's ability to protect the existing lab at Plum Island, which relies for security on a private security company and local police rather than federal agents.

"We are particularly concerned that DHS has not been meeting the security needs of the facility since Federal Protective Service agents were removed from the island," Clinton and Bishop wrote in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Cohen responded that Plum Island used a contract with a private security firm and relied on an agreement with local police, who were deputized to enforce federal laws on the island.

Will Jenkins, Bishop's spokesman, said Friday that Homeland Security "has been responsive to the concerns raised last year, and Congressman Bishop is pleased with the progress DHS is making regarding security for Plum Island."

The White House said modern safety rules at labs are sufficient to avoid any outbreak. But incidents in Britain have demonstrated that the foot-and-mouth virus can cause remarkable economic havoc — and that the virus can escape from a facility.

An epidemic in 2001 devastated Britain's livestock industry, as the government slaughtered 6 million sheep, cows and pigs. Last year, in a less serious outbreak, Britain's health and safety agency concluded the virus probably escaped from a site shared by a government research center and a vaccine maker. Other outbreaks have occurred in Taiwan in 1997 and China last year and in 2006.

If even a single cow signals an outbreak in the U.S., emergency plans permit the government to shut down all exports and movement of livestock. Herds would be quarantined, and a controlled slaughter could be started to stop the disease from spreading.

Infected animals weaken and lose weight. Milk cows don't produce milk. They remain highly infectious, even if they survive the virus.

The Homeland Security Department is convinced it can safely operate the lab on the mainland, saying containment procedures at high-security labs have improved. The livestock industry is divided. Some experts, including the former director at the aging Plum Island lab, say research ought to be kept away from cattle populations — and, ideally placed where the public already has accepted dangerous research.

The former director, Dr. Roger Breeze, suggested the facility could be safely located at the Atlanta campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., home of The United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases.

Another possibility, Breeze said, is on Long Island, where there is no commercial livestock industry. That would allow retention of most of the current Plum Island employees.

The former head of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service said Americans are not prepared for a foot-and-mouth outbreak that has been avoided on the mainland since 1929.

"The horrific prospect of exterminating potentially millions of animals is not something this country's ready for," said Dr. Floyd Horn.

The Agriculture Department ran the Plum Island lab until 2003. It was turned over to the Homeland Security Department because preventing an outbreak is now part of the nation's biological defense program.

Plum Island researchers work on detecting the disease, controlling epidemics using vaccines and drugs, testing imported animals and training professionals.

The new facility will add research on diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans. The Plum Island facility is not secure enough to handle that higher-level research.

A new facility at Plum Island is technically a possibility. Signs point to a mainland site, however, after the administration spent considerable time and money scouting new locations. Also, there are financial concerns about operating from a location accessible only by ferry or helicopter.

The Homeland Security Department said laboratory animals would not be corralled outside the new facility, and they would not come into contact with local livestock. All work with the virus and lab waste would be handled securely and any material leaving would be treated and monitored to ensure it was sterilized.

"Containment technology has improved dramatically since foot-and-mouth disease prohibitions were put in place in 1948," said Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa.

____

Associated Press writer Sharon Theimer contributed to this report.

Remember this?

by Patrick J. Buchanan - December 22, 1997

Those who warned that the U.S. troop commitment to Bosnia risked an open-ended entanglement in the Balkans were right. Bill Clinton has now confirmed that U.S. troops will remain indefinitely. No plan, no strategy, no timetable exists for their withdrawal.

What are the conditions the president has set before the United States can leave? Bosnia’s joint institutions must be “self-sustaining.” A civilian police force must be in place, large enough and sufficiently trained to keep order in the country. And Bosnia’s media should be “free of hate and venom.” This is a formula for permanent entrapment.

Bosnia is a fictitious country to which its Serb and Croat minorities give minimal allegiance. No civilian police force is going to quell an uprising by either to break free of Sarajevo when NATO departs. And since Clinton seems to think Rush Limbaugh, Ollie North and Gordon Liddy pour forth “hate and venom” on the airwaves, exactly what kind of Bosnian FCC does he have in mind?

Nations everywhere are breaking down into ethnic elements. No vital interest of ours is involved in the utopian task of trying to create a multiethnic state on a blood-soaked peninsula where every Muslim, Serb and Croat can personally recall ethnic atrocities. In our lifetime, British India broke up; Pakistan and Bangladesh divorced; Cyprus was divided. In this decade, Czechoslovakia split in two; the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations; Slovenes, Croats and Muslims broke away from a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. Why is it intolerable that Croats and Serbs should break free of Bosnia? And why commit U.S. troops to stave off the inevitable?

The White House argues that if we leave, the Europeans will leave, bloodshed will begin anew, and Iran may well fill the Bosnian vacuum. But that begs the question: If a united Bosnia is not a vital interest of Europe, why is it a vital interest of a United States that is on the other side of the ocean and has never cared a fig whose flag flew over Sarajevo? Why cannot the president tell our NATO allies that if they do not remain in Bosnia, we do not remain in Europe?

That American intervention has succeeded, as the president insists, is undeniable. The bloodshed is ended, the armies are largely demobilized, and roads and bridges have been repaired. But the permanent policing of the Balkans is not the business of the U.S. Army; it is the business of the rich and malingering nations of Europe.

Here we come to the heart of the matter. Half a century ago, when the United States first sent troops back to Europe, Americans were assured by such as Dean Acheson and Dwight Eisenhower that they would be there at most a decade. They stayed 40 years, until the Red Army, which they had been sent to contain, went home.

More than any nation, America won the Cold War. But the NATO allies, though they number 300 million of the richest people on Earth, refuse to shoulder responsibility for their own defense. Not only are Americans to be the policeman of the Balkans, we have been told that we must pay the lion’s share of the cost for the defense of Europe’s eastern frontiers, while protecting Europe’s oil in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the Europeans slash their defense budgets, to create a single currency and help them capture America’s markets around the world.

With the expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic today — Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Slovakia tomorrow — America will have given war guarantees to every region of Europe from the Atlantic to the Russian border, and from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. Any war that breaks out anywhere on the continent in the 21st century will automatically involve the United States. Is this wise?

Yet, to suggest that this might be imperial overstretch is to be mocked as an isolationist by pundits who spent the 1970s bedeviling Richard Nixon on Vietnam and the 1980s bedeviling Ronald Reagan for trying to expel communism from Central America.

America is ceasing to be a republic; she is becoming an empire. We have undertaken the role of the old German empire in defending the ramparts of Europe, the Austrian empire in policing the Balkans, the Ottoman empire in pacifying the Middle East, the British empire in securing the Gulf, and the Japanese empire in containing China and defending Korea. Yet, as U.S. commitments grow, Americans appear less and less willing to fight abroad, and U.S. defense budgets recede to pre-Pearl Harbor levels.

America is inviting the same fate that has befallen every other 20th century empire that has refused to recognize the limits of its power.