By Dino Drudi, Alexandria
(File Photo)

To the editor:

Alexandria Times Publisher Denise Dunbar insists that “taking military intervention off the table is a strategic mistake” vis-à-vis Russia, Syria, North Korea, Iran, etc. in her April 17 column. She even insists that we waited too long to intervene in World War II and should have done so before Japan’s strike at Pearl Harbor.

The United States, however, has had a long history of unprovoked military intervention including World War I, whose outcome resulted in the draconian reparations that helped lead to World War II; Korea, which ended in a draw; Vietnam; Iraq in 2003, where our intervention left al-Qaida in a stronger position; and Libya. Don’t forget the War of 1812, which was sparked by our attempt to invade Quebec.

What do we have to show for these military misadventures? World War II empowered Soviet and Chinese communism — systems statisically more devastating than Nazi Germany’s. Scholars estimate 70 million civilians were killed by those regimes. Compare that to the Nazis’ six million Jews and three million others.

Yet the Soviet Union fell and communist China converted with nary a shot because they could not economically compete with westernized economies. Korea was a draw, which still commands our military presence — and dollars, to pay for it — two-thirds of a century later. Vietnam was a debacle, and Afghanistan and Iraq intractable quagmires from which we have emerged weaker in stature on the international stage.

Except in proportionate self-defense after an attempted invasion, military intervention is never the answer.