In formulating the antiterrorism policies America would use and the direction America would go in the post-9/11 world, President Bush warned the nations of our planet, "If you are not for us, you are for them." With "them" being the pejorative for terrorists and terrorist-sponsoring nations, it naturally follows that the "you" in his statement would seem to indicate every other nation on earth.

"You" make a choice. Us or them.

There was an implied threat in the President’s statement, an ominous sense that unpleasant things would happen to anyone who stood in our way, physically, economically, by way of statecraft – whatever – to our war on terrorism; a sort of "Don’t Tread On Me" kind of stance that played very well to the American public.

So what about all those nations out there with whom we maintain friendly relations, but who not-so-privately hate us? Like France. Or Germany. Most of Europe, as a matter of fact. And let’s not forget South Korea.

The question which naturally arises is, what, exactly, are we prepared to do about it?

The answer, apparently, is nothing, unless you count diplomacy, which has accomplished so very much in this world. Not.

Let’s start with the French. In yer big one – yer Dubya Dubya Two – we liberated their country from the evil of Hitler and his fascists. They’ve thanked us for it in a number of ways: spitting on us, calling us names, failing to support our policies, pulling out of NATO.

But my personal favorite occurred in the eighties, when we struck at Libya in Operation Eldorado Canyon in retaliation for terrorist activities. Our French buddies opened their arms to us – and closed their airspace, forcing our bombers to add a few thousand miles to their round-trip, non-stop mission. (Come to think of it, I seem to recall that those open arms ended in clenched fists with an extended middle finger.)

Then there’s Germany. Our pals. After completely rebuilding (at our expense) the nation we had destroyed, we spent more than half a century defending it from Communism – even helping rebuild their military so they can now defend themselves. We still have soldiers and bases in Germany, so that one of the most prosperous nations on earth won’t have to expend too many of its tax dollars on their own national defense. And they hate us.

And what about South Korea? Remember the Korean "Conflict"? The Pusan Perimeter? The Inchon landing? The Chosin Reservoir? Remember tens of thousands of Americans who died protecting the south from their communist brothers to the north? To this day, we have 37,000 troops in South Korea, most on the DMZ, to prevent another incursion from the imperialistic north. Now the Associated Press carries photos of South Korean restaurants with signs in impeccable English: "Americans not welcome". Their president is mad at us because we don’t care to join his attempts to appease North Korea’s nuclear aspirations. This ain’t just student protesters anymore, folks. These people really, really hate us.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, we are engaged with our NATO "allies" in defense of Bosnia and Kosovo. Let’s look at that for a moment. What exactly are we defending there? In both cases, NATO (read "Americans, with token help from a few of our ‘friends’") has come to the defense of a Muslim minority against an Orthodox Christian majority. We are effectively preventing genocide – for the moment – in a region that has seen genocidal conflict for hundreds of years, and will see it again soon after we’re gone. But we’re preventing the slaughter of Muslims. Let’s remember it was Muslims who smashed planes into both towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, at a cost of more than 3,000 American lives. Am I the only one who thinks something is weird about this seemingly unholy alliance?

And let’s not forget that our initial intervention in Somalia was to aid starving Muslims. So America, both before and after the 9-11 attack, has been defending Islam – against Christians in Bosnia and Kosovo, and against other Muslims in Somalia.

Damn, how could you not love us?

Instead, we’ve got an American senator going around falsely teaching American high school students in her home state of Washington that Americans are hated in the Islamic world because we don’t build roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals like Osama bin Laden did!!! Note to the good senator: He didn’t, we do. Osama bin Laden built terrorist training facilities. Period. Americans spend more on foreign aid than most of the other nations on earth combined. And we haven’t even mentioned Christian missionaries who operate around the world. You might recall that three of them, including a doctor who had spent more than 20 years giving freely to a Muslim population, were recently slaughtered in Yemen by an Islamic terrorist who wanted "to get closer to God".

So where does this leave us? We defend the defenseless against tyranny (France and Korea), we are magnanimous in victory, expending huge piles of American dollars to nurse those we’ve defeated back to health (Germany), and we continue to pour bushels of bucks on those who have a stated agenda to destroy all things not Islam (the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo).

Once again, what, exactly, are we prepared to do about it?

I have a suggestion for President Bush: Let’s leave. That’s right, leave.

For starters, let’s pull our troops out of South Korea. Instead of defending the South Korean border against communist aggression, they could defend the American border against radical Islamic aggression. And we could concentrate much of that effort on our border with Canada, another bastion of America-loving pals.

Then let’s pull our troops out of Bosnia and Kosovo. Why are we defending our sworn enemies? In Bosnia, the Muslims imported Afghanistan’s Mujahadeen terrorists to train their army, and these same terrorists have long been shadowing American convoys. At the very least, let’s cut our involvement to no more troops (and dollars) than are provided by the average NATO country.

Finally, let’s pull our troops out of Germany. We have no reason – militarily, economically, or otherwise – to still have troops garrisoned there. And with their government’s open animosity toward U.S. policy decisions, we have no moral reason to remain either.

Let’s put some teeth into the "If you’re not for us" speech. Let’s stop lending military, economic, and moral support to regimes that hate us.

That’s what we can do.