Book review: O'Rourke proves peace kills

I was pretty hard on P.J. O'Rourke in "P.J. disappoints", a review of Don't Vote, It Just Encourages the Bastards (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010). I wondered when P.J. stopped writing and started stringing quotes together and calling it a book. I now know it happened sometime after 2004, since Peace Kills, published in that year, is one of his better efforts.

Perhaps I can be forgiven for missing Peace Kills when it first appeared. At the time, I was living on the other side of the world, in a place where the reading of books by Americans is discouraged. But all things happen for a reason, and to me, Peace Kills is more of a must-read now than it was then.

The book is about American foreign policy, or the lack thereof. Say's O'Rourke, "Americans hate foreign policy...because Americans hate foreigners.... Being foreigners ourselves, we know what foreigners are up to with their...lying alliances, greedy agreements, and trick-or-treaties."

And yet, he argues, Americans cannot ignore the world. He dips his pen in acid and looks at American involvement in such foreign policy triumphs as Kosovo, Israel, Egypt, Kuwait and Iraq, not forgetting 9/11. He demonstrates the muddle-headedness of the Clinton administration's made-up-as-it-went-along policies. Then he shows how Dubya's administration did no better. Both administrations, he says, left the world a worse place than they found it.

Remember, this was written two elections ago. O'Rourke makes sport of the ignorance of the 2004 crop of contenders for the Democractic presidential nomination. Are the Republican hopefuls, this year, any smarter or better?

That's a rhetorical question. The only one who's making any sense, IMHO, is Ron Paul, and he's arguing for a policy of isolationism. Here's what O'Rourke has to say about that. "Our previous attempts at isolationism were successful. Unfortunately, they were successful for Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan."

Hm. Maybe P.J. is right. Maybe the USA can't just turn its back on the world. But if America must act as the world's policeman, if it must involve itself in the messes of the Middle East, Far East and Africa, it must have a coherent plan, and a vision of what should be done in the aftermath of conflict.

Walt welcomes the suggestions of ordinary Americans -- O'Rourke calls them the "dull normals" -- for a sensible foreign policy. Answers on a postcard, please, to the usual address.