A really, really, really good question.Denmark recently downgraded the embassy [in Pakistan] and moved out most foreign staff. In April, Denmark moved embassy staff in Algeria and Afghanistan to secret locations.
Moved out most foreign – i.e., Danish--staff? Embassies in secret locations? Welcome to the Islamic world as Western war zone. What do we get out of being there?
Going back a few years we had a President called Wilson. Tried to get us into a Mod 1 Rev 0 of the UN. He was a Democrat. Took a lot of heat from Repubs who said they just wanted the world to go away.
Of course it didn't and we had WWI, the Cold War and now the War On Terror.
In the course of all of this the Demos and Repubs got together for WWII and the early part of the Cold War. In its later years we had Reagan and it was the Demos who said they just wanted the world to go away..
Times change but stupidity is forever.. Fast forward to today where the Demos are still trying to snatch defeat from victory as a political position and it appears that the people we have, and are, trying to help, deserve nothing better than to be left to live in their own hellish countries.
Problem, is they won't and don't. Muslims are flooding Europe and are coming into the US. Part of the problem causing this is that the birth rate in Europe is below replacement rate. i.e. The natives are being out bred. The US is slightly better, but not enough to brag about. Our immigrants, legal and cultural sojourners, aka illegal aliens are mainly Hispanic.
The Hispanics, in the past, have assimilated into our culture. The question now, with the millions coming in, what is the tipping point where they don't assimilate?
Muslims, even with a much smaller number, aren't assimilating and are now demanding Sharia law be accepted.
So what we are doing in the ME is trying to convert Iraq and Afghanistan into secular democracies through military might and the remainder through diplomacy.
Will it work?? Probably not as currently being attempted. Islam is a religion and it is expansionist through both cultural and military pressures. If you don't split the two apart the radical terrorists will be with us forever, and in a world of suitcase nukes and envelopes with Ricin they can have a lot of leverage.
So we have to belly up to the bar and do the job. Can we sustain the effort? Democracies don't do long term fighting very well unless both sides agree. Right now the anti-war Left, the true base of the Demos, have us at a huge disadvantage. And unless the radical terrorist screw up and cause some huge amount of damage it is hard to see the country come together. But it just might over some cultural issue.
That is IF the MSM can be made to be pro-American culture. Right now it is not. As neither is Gollywood or the general entertainment industry.
So that's about it. Hope it helps. Feel free to ask questions.