Source: Wikimedia Commons

And I also don’t understand why America has a single soldier in the Middle East, nor why Israel’s problems automatically become ours, nor why America seems to fight a lot of proxy wars for Israel in the hostile nations that surround it. America helped defeat Nazi Germany, right? What else, exactly, is owed?

When I was a kid, Muslims were called Moslems and Islam was called Mohammedanism. It was viewed as a quaint and harmless religion in primitive lands far away. These days, after 9/11 and Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon and San Bernardino and Orlando, the global Islamic umma is rapidly shaping up to be the West’s opponent in a seemingly inevitable World War III. And unlike World War II, we’ll likely have to fight this one on home turf.

Approximately three thousand Americans died in the 9/11 attacks. In response, America launched the War on Terror. Estimates vary that this endless war has cost taxpayers anywhere from $1.4 trillion to $5 trillion. Even at the lowest estimate, that’s a half-billion dollars for every person who died in 9/11. Even though I suppose one shouldn’t put a price on human life, that price seems extravagant.

And that doesn’t include the fact that far more American soldiers died to avenge 9/11 than American citizens died on 9/11. It doesn’t account for the hundreds of thousands or million-plus Muslims that have been slaughtered in the ensuing carnage. It doesn’t factor in the grim reality that the Middle East is far more unstable now than it was fifteen years ago. And it certainly doesn’t tally the cultural devastation wrought by the mass importation”€”always against the majority will”€”of Muslims into Europe and the USA ever since this extravagantly insane War on Terror was launched.

In Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson said, “You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.”

I suspect I understand what’s gone wrong with it. I believe that the day America first started meddling in the Middle East was the day America stumbled.