Great. Just when you're feeling really good about practically owning the seas, the Chinese invent a missile that can knock out a super-carrier from 900 miles. Isn't this always the way it is? You get to feeling pretty good about being the top dog in this, that, or the other, then some guy you don't trust, and whom you owe zillions of dollars, checks one of your best pieces. Your move.

But wait, there's more. The Iranians, or, at least, their peace-loving leaders, may have secured the services of SAM 300 missiles, thus effectively thwarting any effort Israel might make to destabilize Tehran's nuclear project. Only stealth bombers can get through such a defense and, well, let's see, who's got any of those?

Meanwhile, on the battlefields of Afghanistan, the enemy pores over the latest top secret documents describing American tactics and covert Afghani helpers, conveniently downloaded from the Internet, courtesy of some Australian coward with a chip on his shoulder against the US.

Well that's just great. What a great week it's been for US global strategy. How do they expect us to police all the indignities on the planet when people can't leave well enough alone and insist on gumming up a good thing? And how are we ever going to export democracy to the rest of the world if we can't make it work in Iraq and Afghanistan?

George Washington warned us about this. Foreign entanglements. Isn't it enough that we learn to be content within our own borders, making the best use of our resources, caring for our neighbors, and leaving the world to its folly? I think I'm becoming an isolationist in my later years. But more than that, I'm wishing that our country could be truly great again, in de Tocqueville's sense of great as good.

America will only be great if she is good, and only American Christianity can make America good.

Great.

T. M. Moore