FARAWAY LANDS

How did we get to be the fixer, re-builder, blessed savior of Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Greece, India, Pakistan, Haiti? Gee, I better Google and get a list of the other countries getting financial aid.

Yikes, I did -- huge list, the money's in the billions -- I figure the purpose is keeping other countries as friends that won't turn against us and align themselves with Al Qaeda/Anti-American Muslims or Arabs, Hamas/the Islamic Resistance Movement, Pakistanis, the brooding North Koreans.

(I'm not in the mood, I can't bring myself to Goggle up a list of our enemies.)

Before World war II, wasn't it FDR's Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, who came out so strongly with "Stay out of the wars," and promoted isolationism? Maybe non-intervention, isolationism might help things right now.

I don't have the history in my mental storage bank, but I resent -- yep, resent the schools, factories, the water-power-heat facilities that we paid for and our soldiers built in Iraq, which are getting destroyed by Iraqis during their continuing civil war/struggle/tangle/whatever-you-call-it, that continues to exist in Iraq.

Why oh why are Americans still getting killed over there? It's as if death of more American soldiers is needed, to PAY some of the angry Iraqis for our invasion -- PAY for the good deeds we did, that they don't want. America is being punished for the more civilized aspects in today's Iraq, that our guys built with their half-assed, reluctant help.

And now with the latest headlines, we're worrying -- we're deeply concerned about Sudan, a land of horrors and desperate poverty. There are other terrifyingly needy countries, but Sudan is on the world's mind and right now, and on our urgent list.

Whewy, how do you feel about us giving Sudan the all-American, Heave-Ho-Help?

I don't want us to be caught in another Afghanistan, another country that resists change. We are neglecting us -- we need Heave-Ho work done to keep our roads, schools, churches, culture, electricity, water, heat -- add whatever you want onto our own urgent list.

We have things to do at home that we are neglecting in order to help faraway lands.

Are we, by neglecting the faraway places, handing them over to our enemy? Perhaps. But neglecting ourselves, we are also breeding a home-grown enemy that's expanding, getting angrier, looking for home-grown ways to destroy us.