It may take ten years or even twenty years to repair the damage done to America's security through the deliberate foreign policy initiatives followed by the three horsemen of the Apocalypse, Kerry, Clinton and Obama. That is, of course, if the damage is able to be repaired at all.
Whether we can fix American security largely depends on the views of the next person we elect as president of the United States.
There exists in the world today a bloody crescent stretching from Morocco through North Africa, around the Mediterranean Sea, slicing its way through Mesopotamia, Persia, near Asia and north into the Balkans. The countries affected are the birthplaces of some of our most ancient civilizations.
We know these places well: Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Georgia, Afghanistan. They nobly represent Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.
We know too that the people of these lands, like every average American, just wants to be let alone.
But letting them stand alone now, against the barbarity they face, without our aid and assistance, will only mean that when WE finally face the barbarity, we will face it on our own, alone.
All you need to know is that our foreign policy has been so tossed from its natural moorings that the king of Jordan isn't afraid to utter the words "radical Islam." Yet even now we have a president who is frightened to admit that he-- who should know more about Islam than any of us-- is so damned wrong in his policies toward the new barbarians, Islamic or Slavic; savages who paint the land-- quite literally-- with swords dipped in blood.
And this is the same kind ideological myopia that we too often see from Libertarians.
They want the world to be seen through their ideological, gray-colored glasses, when in fact, the world appears very much different to pragmatic thinking. If history is to be a guide, it proves that there is no more dangerous time than when a country just wants to be let alone to manage its own affairs.
Don't get me wrong: On economic policy I bend to libertarian, free market ideas. The pages of Townhall Finance is replete with columns from noted Libertarians.
Most of the guests I have on my radio show are Libertarian economists or finance guys.
And as right as they may be domestically and fiscally, they are wrong about foreign policy.
They just can't admit it.
In these days of interconnectedness, if we wish to support freedom at home, we have to nurture it abroad as well. Even as far back as the 1930s it was impossible for America to ignore the development of the tyrant states of Italy, Germany, Russia and Japan.
Were it not for American leadership in standing up to these tyrant states, the modern world would be wholly incomprehensible today.
Some still dismiss ISIS as a "JV" team. They believe that in this day and in this age barbarous government under ISIS is rendered impossible. Or, worse, that we have no stake in what happens in Iraq or Ukraine. But it is important to remember that tens of millions of now dead souls heard similar reassurances about Hitler and Stalin.
We fought in a coalition to put down tyrannical government for the sensible reason that we did not want to face those enemies alone.
We have maintained that alliance even to this day for the exact same reason.
It has arguably been one of the most successful military alliances in history.
It bested the combined might of Germany and Japan and we converted them to friends; it outlasted the Soviets, and we converted some of those old "republics" to friends. It fought well in both Iraq and Afghanistan but was let down politically.
We have the might, and we have right on our side.
All that remains to be seen is whether this alliance can best Obama too.
And in this, from Libertarians, we only ask to be let alone.