So said Greta Garbo. Greta Garbo said something else. She said: ”I never said I want to be alone.”

And there you have it.

Donald Trump’s “America First” campaign, like “America First” campaigns in past years, contains a lot of Greta Garbo’s sentiments. ”Let my country alone; we can do it by ourselves. We don’t want to be mixed up in your troubles.” In many ways, it’s a refreshing thought. In others, of course, it will never be the case.

I think back to the First World War (metaphorically, thinking back). The vast majority of the country did not want us involved. Woodrow Wilson ran for his second term with the slogan “He kept us out of war”. Within the country, there were support for both sides. But then why did we get into the war? We got into the war because Germany didn’t respect our neutrality and started going after our ships, both our commercial and our passenger shipping. There you have it. We wanted to be isolated, but we wanted our ships to travel the world. Among other things, our economy depended upon it. So we entered the war and, because we entered the war with force and gusto, the Allied forces won the war and defeated Germany and its allies.

Hooray!! Victory? Maybe. Maybe not. We might have won the war, but we lost the peace conference, which set reparations against Germany so high that Germany’s implosion was almost inevitable. We lobbied for a worldwide League of Nations, and then Congress refused to let the United States join it, so that its implosion was equally inevitable. So Germany imploded, the League of Nations became powerless, a depression enveloped the world, Hitler came to power, another World War ensued, and six million Jews were killed, leading – among other things – to the establishment of the State of Israel, and look where Israel is today.

Had we not entered World War I, had we simply pared back and watched from afar, would any of those things have happened? It’s that old “joke” – “He asked the ancient Chinese philosopher what the effect of Napoleon’s victories in Europe really were. The philosopher raised his eyes, looked him in the face and said……..”Too early to tell”.

Why did we go into Korea? Korea was not bothering us. Its recovery from World War II and its future were uncertain. The USA and the USSR had decided to divide the country into two, one under the general protection pr influence of each. What if this hadn’t been done, if the United States had not encouraged the separation of the South from the North. What if, when the North attacked the South, we had just stood by and watched? Certainly American lives would have been saved. And there undoubtedly would not have been the vibrant South Korea we see today (undoubtedly, I assume). But would we have a nuclear-saber rattling North Korea, looking more dangerous every day?

And what if we just let Putin’s Russia have its way with Ukraine? How many lives would be saved? How much destruction would have been avoided? And, in particular, what good did we do supporting Ukraine’s defense if our next Congress or next President just says “We’re out of there. America First”?

We may, of course, have a repeat of Ukraine on Taiwan. If China decides to move in and take over, what will we do? Will we sit by and watch, or will we go to battle for the sake of democracy? And if we do the latter, will we do harm or good?

Frankly, I have never thought much (“much” meaning “positively”, not “a lot”) about New Hampshire’s motto: ”Live free or die”. I have always thought that if you die, you are dead. If you live less than free, there is always a chance that freedom is around the corner. But our foreign policy is there to support our idea of freedom, everywhere. Maybe that is a mistake.

Everyone is quoting Ben Franklin: ”a republic, if you can keep it”. This is true not only for our country, but for every country, but it is rarely quoted in a universal sense. Some countries cannot or will not keep the freedom they have earned – but they feel they can look to the United States to help them. Until they can’t any longer. We are, sad to say, not reliable.

And then there’s Israel. The Jews seem always to be an exception. Out of sync with the rest of the world. Throwing cogs into what might otherwise be a well oiled machine. This was Hitler’s problems with them. And now we see, after 75 years, that the establishment of their own State, which was meant to make them a people like all other peoples, has not seemed to do the trick. They are still unique. Israel is still unique. How does Israel fit in with America First, or American isolationism? I asked the Chinese philosopher – you know what he said.

No answers even being suggested in this post today. Just one more thing (or two) to ponder.