The Middle East: These barbarians will be killing and fighting for the next 1000 years just like the past 5000 years. It's their natural way of life, and they like it. They like to kill, rape, and die. It's their culture, and we must be sensitive to it. By Western Civ standards, they are all nuts and the notion of a civil, Western-style secular nation does not really interest them. To them we are decadent and ungodly and we may be, but the Western World has not been a civil one for very long either. Leave them alone with their tribal and religious furies, but just keep the barbarians far away from me. My life without Moslems would not diminish my life one bit...well, I do like falafel.
The Ukraine: Who cares? Russia is a crappy, deteriorating third-world country with a bit of oil and with Czarist imperial delusions. Not our problem. If Europe cares, let them put on their big boy pants and do whatever they want. Start a European war. Last I heard, the Ukraine was not one of the United States.
Israel? They can handle things themselves. Their battles will never end just as in biblical days.
China? They want to be a big deal again. Well, they are, sort-of. They own most of the US debt, sadly. But that's our fault. If they want to be a big deal, it's ok with me. Why anybody would chose to live there is beyond me. Horrible, charmless place of desolation, with too many people and the stupid, paranoid, autocratic government they deserve. To each his own.
These sorts of things are not "crises," they are just ordinary life on planet earth. The "American Imperium" isn't over - it never really existed. Go ahead, try a round of golf - and tell me why I am wrong not to be hysterical. Trouble, conflict, and war is the way of the world.
I am going fishing now, happy to be a rebel American.
