Security Should Be the Deciding Issue – WSJ.com Introductory graphs, though all is worth reading:
As the scale of the economic crisis becomes clear and comparisons to the Great Depression of the 1930s are tossed around, there is a very real danger that America could succumb to the feeling that we no longer have the luxury of worrying about distant lands, now that we are confronted with a “real” problem that actually affects the lives of all Americans. As we consider whether various bailout plans help Main Street as well as Wall Street, the subtext is that both are much more important to Americans than Haifa Street.
One problem with this emotion is that it ignores the sequel to the Great Depression — the rise of militaristic Japan marked by the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, both of which resulted in part from economic dislocations spreading outward from the U.S. The inward-focus of the U.S. and the leading Western powers (Great Britain and France) throughout the 1930s allowed these problems to metastasize, ultimately leading to World War II.
Is it possible that American inattention to the world in the coming years could lead to a similarly devastating result? You betcha.
The major media have lulled us into a soft sense of security that if only we elect a hopey/changey therapist in chief that we’ll somehow be safer, because he’ll take really good care of us at home, and talk those mean people elsewhere into being nicer.
History says otherwise, bluntly. Our descendants will study this era, and perhaps they will say, “What were they thinking?” Remember how you have felt when reading about the run up to NAZI Germany’s wars, and the feckless response it received from Europe (and the USA)? It’s a bit like watching a horror movie you’ve seen before, and saying to the soon-to-be-victim on screen, “No! No! Don’t open that door!” You know what’s about to happen, and yet you watch with a sick fascination, almost suspending disbelief, as if it could turn out differently this time.
But we’re about to open the door ourselves, this time.
