AN ARGUMENT FOR ISOLATION...

     As the truth surrounding the murder of American Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans is grudgingly affirmed by a recalcitrant Obama administration, the horror of what happened on that dark Libyan night two weeks ago, has become appallingly clear.  Stevens was the face of America in that troubled country.  He was also a man, a good man by all accounts, whose last hours were filled with horrific pain and humiliation - his battered body dragged through the streets of Benghazi after some, who had inflicted death, had also inflicted the humiliation of sodomy.  What happened in Libya was a terrorist act.
     The duplicitous denials of terrorism by administration spokesmen, from our ambassador to the United Nations, to the White House Press Secretary, to the Secretary of State, to the President himself, should be enough cause to fire Obama.  It should also be enough cause for this nation to reconsider our involvement in some parts of the middle east. 
     We are the most current of a long list of nations - the British and French among others - who have attempted to implant western ethics and values that the overpowering influence of centuries of repressive, and often barbaric tribal traditions, have so far resisted.
     The Russians came to Afghanistan for a decade during the 1980's.  How did that work out?
     We exited Iraq last year.  Once the last of our tanks and troop carriers crossed into Kuwait, those who govern Iraq quickly cozied up to Iran.  The Taliban continue to exact casualties and treasure from us while they await our long-announced withdrawal from Afghanistan next year, when they will no doubt reemerge as a dominant force in that weak and corrupt nation.
     Despite the roiling political turbulence of America's formative years, our founding fathers were always guided by Judeo-Christian ethics, and the additional influence of the English Magna Carta, in drawing up the Bill of Rights enshrined in our Constitution.  There are no such beacons to guide middle eastern societies from fractious tribal dominance to the unity required for freedom and democracy.
     Congress just re-upped billions in aid to middle eastern nations including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Pakistan, even as the ashes of burned American flags still smolder in the streets of those nations.
     How masochistic can we be, especially since America is broke. 
     A new policy of isolation is in order.  Close embassies in countries that revile America and our western ethics.  At the least we save on fire insurance costs.  Let the Swiss represent our interests as we do in Iran.  It's cheaper, and what's more, there would be no American ambassadors to torture, sodomize and murder.