Reading the many letters from malaysiakini 's readers urging the US to review our policies, as a US taxpayer I can only agree that we need to take a good hard look at what is in our best interests.

We should stop giving away our hard-earned tax dollars to 'friends' around the world with two-faced governments who send condolences but have their populations dancing away in the streets when the World Trade Center is destroyed despite the fact that various organisations in the US donated US$300 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan since 1989, more than any single Muslim organisation in the world.

We should stop rushing in to support Muslim populations under threat from their neighbours as were in the cases of Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, placing our people in the service industry in danger while extremists in their midst dream of claiming martyrdom bathed in American blood. We should leave such countries to the kind and loving mercies of their enemies since US help is seen as evil.

The way that you hear some people rail about our involvement in those regions, I'm sure that these countries will be much better off being slaughtered and exterminated by their neighbours than to suffer the indignity of receiving US military protection. The money will be better spent in shoring up our Social Security and Medicare plans, both in need of more funds.

We should develop alternative energy technologies so that the US will no longer be held hostage by the need for Opec oil, hence we can leave the Middle East to their pre-oil boom days as cultural and political back waters. We will ask our government to put more resources into development of new energy sources so that hostile Arab nations will no longer have to put up with our investments. It will be interesting to see what kind of economy will develop among the Arab nations once crude oil reverts to being the black stuff that you cannot drink.

We should review our open trade policies towards regimes that are only glad to receive American trade dollars but cannot reciprocate with decent friendship. We should carefully screen for countries that will welcome our investment of funds, time and resources in return for value-added services, not places that will want to take us hostage at their whim and fancy. We should only deal generously with nations that prove to be our true friends in times of trial and tribulation.

We should be more circumspect about welcoming students and visitors from countries of questionable sincerity, in case by our sharing of our knowledge we will arm our future enemies.

We should stop offering millions of dollars of education aid money to Third World countries whose students end up perverting our education to serve their warped religious ideals and hurt the US. We have opened our country to visitors-cum-terrorists who abuse and manipulate our hospitality and this should be stopped.

We should stop telling other countries on how they should treat their own citizens and leave them to their wonderful governments. Of course this will also mean that we should stop taking refugees from such countries when their governments turn into flesh-eating monsters that will devour their own citizens. This will reduce our Federal expenditure in human rights monitoring and take away any reason to hold us responsible for the failings of foreign governments.

Be careful with what you wish for because it may just come true.