That's a really disturbing article. As some of us expected, this little war may have made the world much less safe than it was.
"One of the most extreme shifts was seen in Turkey, where the government, heeding popular sentiment, decided not to allow United States to use its soil as a base for attacks on Iraq although Washington and Ankara are partners in NATO.
The poll found that 83 percent of Turks now have an unfavorable opinion of the United States, up from 55 percent last summer.
The swing was even sharper in Indonesia, where Islamic radicalism has been rising since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
While 75 percent had a favorable opinion of the United States in 2000, 83 percent now have an unfavorable view. Similar levels of animosity hold sway in the Palestinian Authority and Jordan."
The world will never be perfectly safe- no matter how fascist the country, terrorists will be able to function. Rather than going the route of Draco, perhaps we should pursue the roll of real humanitarian nation (a roll we have never really assayed.)
If you know about Kohlberg's levels of moral development (which generally apply to people) I've always felt the US wanted to be at level 5 (our founding fathers were trying to be there) but we've always been mired at level 2 in the "What's in it for me me me" stage. While I'm sure Ayn had a point with the virtue of selfishness, sometimes unselfishness gets better results. I think we may be at the point where things really have to change, in terms of our exploitation of the rest of the world (for the putative benefit of the rest of the world), or things will get much, much worse for us. |
