Me and US Isolationism

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson042208.html

'In the heart of the most ardent internationalist there now grows the feeling that it might just be good for Europe or South Korea to defend itself — and for once take the flak that concrete action, not armchair moralizing, invites. Americans of every persuasion are beginning to think that a reduction in our global profile might be both profitable for ourselves and also good medicine for our friends — like when 30-something-year-old children are finally asked to move out of the house and make their own car payments.'

My overriding feeling about US isolationism is summed up by the parable of the Good Samaritan. When Jesus told this story, he brought together a number of important factors. The Good Samaritan intervened because he could, he had the capability; he intervened despite the lack of a prospect of personal gain; he intervened despite the absence of a prior relationship with the stricken victim; he intervened despite it being pure chance that he happened to be passing by. If you believe that this story has a crucial message for us, you cannot be an isolationist. The strong and able have a responsibility to those in need. How many US Rangers would it have taken to stop the Rwandan genocide in its machete-weilding tracks? 300? 500? 1000? How much immeasurable human suffering could it have prevented? Remember, the DRC war which has killed at vague estimate three million people is largely spillover from Rwanda.

If the UN force at Srebrenica had been 500 instead of 100, and British or American rather than Dutch, 7000 Bosnian men and boys would still be alive, at home with their wives and mothers. And if you look at the places where we did intervene? 800 British paratroops stopped the Sierra Leone civil war cold. A few thousand Australian troops ended the murderous civil war in East Timor within weeks. Bosnia itself became peaceful at the point where NATO forces occupied it (and remains so only because they still do). Iraq and Afghanistan are both good examples of unabashed intervention to save people from tyranical murderous rule- except that because of British Govmt parsimony we didn't take the fight to the mafias of Basra, to our lasting shame.

I understand many of the motivations behind American isolationism. But the moral imperative overrides them- if the strong and able don't help the weak, who will?