Replies

First I'd like to thank you for the excellent work you've provided in bringing together so many different opinions on US foreign policy. It is enlightening.

Now I would like to ask my fellow freepers to pause a moment and consider what these world-wide voices are saying and how they understand what we Americans view as our role in the world.

There is a natural self-defensive tendency to discount what these people are saying. I think that a reflexive denial can be delusional, that's not to say I agree w/ the general sentiment, but rather that we should give their concerns due weight.

Obviously the US cannot impose its will on the whole world, I don't believe that anyone at FR would even want that. That is NOT freedom. But if our rhetoric and our actions signal that we are dividing the world into two mutually exclusive camps of client states and enemies then whether that is our intent or not we have a problem.

WE must understand that the ever more integrated infrastructure and support systems that we are building is frieghtening to many people (people like me). The powers that the state has taken unto itself via the Patriot Act are rightly viewed w/ alarm. Furthermore, there are many things associated w/ this modern world that are, quite frankly, anethima to human happiness and the US is leading the way.

I think those people have every right to be scared.

I think that what the US wants to do is honorable and necessary, but unless we can proceed w/ a proper and truthful modesty that bears witness to the community of nations (I know that's a corny phrase) the end result of all our actions could be terrible and disasterous, both to everyone else and to ourselves.

Let us pause, dear freepers, and think these things through.