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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (83296)	3/18/2003 12:52:16 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It articulates what a majority of Americans believe, . . . I haven't read the piece yet, Bill, but given this runup I certainly will. However, for starters, that claim is wrong. You can't possibly know. You are just stating it to get a rise out of folk like me.

To: LindyBill who wrote (83296)	3/18/2003 12:58:34 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What a load. Makes my feelings about Victor Hanson's articles take a back seat. Good to know we still disagree at profound levels, Bill, not just superficial stuff like whether Friedman is wishy and washy at the same time. You are right; this is about Victorian times. But one of the things we left behind were these kinds of justifications for imperialism, colonialism. Talk about your backward steps. We are possessors of the absolute truths and we intend to impose those truths on the world. I, of course, think the first is absolute nonsense. But I do think it's possible to hold it without also holding the notion that you plan to force those views down everyone else's throat. It just might be the case that the act of forcing produces its opposite. Moreover, the past of the US has not been to force those views but rather to force commercial views, to uphold dictators who supported the expansion of American business interests even when that ran against the interests of local populations. Central America is a prime example; there are plenty of others.

To: LindyBill who wrote (83296)	3/18/2003 1:03:58 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 281500

Hear, hear. I like the zoology, too, though I'd like not to think of myself as a hedgehog. In any event, it's nice to see the hawk, dove, chicken hawk, crow, sparrow, parakeet, etc., business get downgraded, even though it is obvious that either the foxes or the hedgehogs here are going to get a tasty ration of crow shortly. The best part of the piece was the call for foreign relations based on moral superiority, though God and Allah know that there is often no room for morals when the security interests of a nation are at stake.