Look, I am not a peacenik. Multilateral intervention can be a good thing, when you can get everyone aligned. And unilateral intervention is fine if the defense of the country is at stake.

But the fundamental issue here isn't either of those two things. It's the idea that the US needs to be anywhere and everywhere, with bases and power projection all over the world, policing everything from the growing of coca in Colombia to the acquisition of weapons by the militaries of middle eastern dictatorships.

THAT'S what we need to stop. And I don't know if the proper term for that is "noninterventionism" or not.

Not really true. See the first 200 pages of Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace.

Why go after Chinese workers when the Chinese government has a policy of nonintervention?

Is there reason to believe these attacks were specifically targetted at the people *because* they were chinese?

Regardless you seem to be arguing with something of a strawman. I don't think anyone, not even Ron Paul, has suggested that a policy of non-interventionism will mean an end to any attacks on our citizens by foreigners. The point is simply to reduce (hopefully drastically) the amount of animosity there is for us world wide.

I suspect you agree with that sentiment.

Non-interventionism will not end war, will not even end war that we are likely to be involved in, but it will reduce the sheer number of wars we fight.

Well thank God that China has an official policy of noninterventionism! I'd dread to think what might happen if they sent parts of their army into Korea to help the North Koreans! Opps they did! Or maybe if they attempted to destabilise all of Africa as the English, French and Dutch started pulling out of their colonies. Again, they did. Is it noninterventionism to send arms to South American terrorist groups? Suppose an America plane was flying in international airspace and a Chinese plane crashes into it forcing it down? Is that noninterventionism? Do you suppose Taiwan sees them as noninterventionist? Suppose a Clinton took millions from the Red Army for favors to be announced later, is that noninterventionism? Suppose they did it twice?

I guess it takes a Neo-Socialist to be propagandist for an aggressive socialist nation.

Then you're a fool with no concept of global economics or international power politics, and there's no reason to read the rest of your post.

So I didn't.

"I don’t think we should kid ourselves into believing that we’ll make friends by not intervening. We won’t"

The evidence you present would support an argument that "we should not kid ourselves into believeing that everyone on earth will be our freinds, by not intervening."

Which is very different than the argument you make. You dont raise any points that contradict the claim that we might make some friends, or many friends with a non-interventionist policy. Only that there still might be some who attack us.

But I digress. What do terrorists attacks on China have to do with anything at all? The Chinese govt. could care less what happens to their citizens. Heck, its citizens don't even know what happens to their countrymen overseas unless the govt. cares to tell them about it.

Get real, Dave.

However, an aggressive interventionist foreign policy advocated by many neocons would likely put us in more danger. Fore one, our bombs will (and are) essentially create anti-Americans-for-life by destroying families and infrastructure. Intentional or not, these scars will last a long time and which the effects will not felt until many years down the road.

But I also believe that an official policy of noninterventionism would be imprudent

Im not sure what your point is--who is arguing for a blanket "official policy of noninterventionism"?

I was wrong on the imprudent part—the strategy used by our military was brilliant. I still think I was right on the limits of what can be accomplished in Afghanistan.

I'm curious why Afghanistan is included in this list. The invasion of Afghanistan wasn't "interventionism" but was, rather, substantively different from the other actions on the list, non?