On Election Day, the Ace of Spades website posted a picture of two Iraqi women, with purple-stained fingers showing they had voted in an election.

It was a “Get Out The Vote” message, noting that whatever inconveniences YOU may experience by voting, “These women literally risked their lives to vote”.

My first reaction was, “And THE ONE can hardly wait to sell them out”.

Obama’s rhetoric on Iraq, and comments about Israel, showed a casual willingness to sell out allies when convenient.

A commenter asked, “Who appointed us to be their guardians? Why is it America’s job to make sure they are safe?”

Perhaps we’d rather not have the entire world as a nuclear-armed camp, figuring that the more countries with these things, the more risk that some will eventually be used.

Our alliances with these countries ain’t out of the goodness of our heart, but for our own best interests. Sell one out, and I’ll bet you the others will sure take notice.

The commenter seemed to be saying, “To hell with them; let them take care of themselves!”

Ok! But, they might do exactly that, and we might be less than thrilled with the results.

If countries under threat (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan) think that our word is no longer any good, they’ll almost certainly feel the need for nuclear arms as the only real deterrent to someone like China. And note, those countries ALL have the necessary economic, industrial and technical wherewithal to go nuclear. All they need do is make the decision.

Others, in the Middle East, will want them to deter Iran. How about Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Maybe Libya decides that abandoning their efforts was a mistake. THOSE countries may lack the technology, but they can certainly afford to finance it.

It could just go on and on.

THAT could be a very likely consequence of us deciding to just disengage ourselves from these countries.

We’ve tried, for a long time, to convince others that they didn’t need them, because WE would provide the nuclear umbrella.

When they figure they can’t count on us, the whole thing unravels.

If the commenter gets his wish, and they DO take care of themselves, it could get real interesting for us as well.

As we also reside on the same planet, I think it almost impossible we would remain unaffected.

So, standing up for our allies is not just a nice thing to do; it makes the hardest kind of common sense.

Simply put, we protect others in order to protect ourselves.

Abandoning them, selling them out, would be an unbelievably short-sighted (as in STUPID) thing to do, and would hurt us more in the long run. No one would trust an agreement with us; and why should they, given such a record?

Instead of being worth a damn, our word would only be noise.

And that would be tragic, because WE set its’ value, by our actions.

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