Trotsky Was Right

I am no fan of Trotsky, but he was right about one thing: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Many Americans seem to think that they can swear off foreign policy, but it isn’t that easy. I wrote on Sunday about Iran’s inexorable march toward nuclear capability, as proclaimed openly by its own leaders.

In Ukraine, events seem to be moving toward a climax, as the government has sent troops into the eastern part of the country to oppose pro-Russian forces that have seized various government facilities. Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev says that Ukraine is “on the brink of civil war.” I think everyone takes that as a threat; whether Russia will follow through on the threat and annex eastern Ukraine, we do not yet know. If they do, there is nothing we can do about it.

In Nigeria, Muslim terrorists bombed the Nyanya bus station, killing more than 70 people.

BusStation048

In another incident in northeastern Nigeria, a Muslim terrorist group attacked a girls’ school, kidnapping 100 or more teenage girls for use as slaves.

Today is the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. It was treated, for the most part, like the anniversary of a natural disaster. There was plenty of praise for the courage of the survivors, and hardly any reference to the people who perpetrated the attack and their ideology.

Coincidentally, the New York Police Department announced today that it is disbanding the unit that conducted surveillance of Muslim groups and neighborhoods. The New York Times describes this action, probably correctly, as part of a general scaling back of anti-terrorism measures that were taken in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Here in the U.S., retreat from the world is the order of the day. Unfortunately, the world may not choose to cooperate. If there is a nation in which war is all too interested, it is ours.

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