Brasas, this was a very interesting article, but again, it is just one man's opinion, but it does contain alot of truth.

Think of the beginnings of American. The first settlers were the Puritans, whose "type" of religious worshipping was so severe that they were really thrown out of Britain. The America of today is turning more towards the Puritanical, forgetting the constitutional separation of church and state. One need only look at Bush's policies, and just a while ago the Republicans were the party that just let people live their lives with less government interference.

Next, remember that America did not really want to get involved in the World Wars, and it was only the attack on Pearl harbour [some say santioned by the President] that made Americans mad and they entered the war. One thing you have to say about the Americans is if they really put they minds to it, they will/can accomplish almost anything. After the war, America helped rebuild the economies of much of Europe and Japan.

After that, America sort of became the world's policeman, Deocracy vs. Communism, but they forget, that a "good guy" will never beat a "bad guy" because the bad guys can use tactics that the good guy can't.

The USSR fell apart basically because they ran out of money because of the 10 year war with Afghanistan [with America funding the Afghani's] plus supporting other communist countries like Cuba.

In terms of foreign policy, while it is nice to think every country can be a democracy, that just will not happen. What has America really accomplished in Afghanistan and Iraq? They removed one leadership without having something to replace it. Their best move may be to put Saddam on a US payroll, tell him to keep his nose clean, but let him go back and run Iraq and perhaps even Afghanistan. The USSR never ran so well as under Stalin, monster he may have been.

If you watch any US TV now, you can see that the public does not have a stomach for casualties. Okay, no one wants to die, or have a family member killed, but we are only talking 500+ in Iraq, many "after the war". Compare this to how many tens of millions dead in WWll.

I like one quote from the article:
Quote:
By what possible moral calculus does an American intervention to liberate 25 million people forfeit moral legitimacy because it lacks the blessing of the butchers of Tiananmen Square or the cynics of the Quai d’Orsay?


This stems from America's unilateral attack on Iraq, and now not wanting to share the money to be made in rebuilding it with those that opposed it to begin with. Face it, no matter what America does, someone will find fault with it. Now, with an election comming up in the US, the Democrats are second guessing what the repulican administration did.

Finally, every country has its own internal and external agenda's, which may or may not agree with American foreign policies. Should America just pack up, go home, let the rest of the world worry about itself, [and develop an oil substitute, thereby controlling the world economically, LOL?].

It seems no matter what America tries to do, things will always revert to their "natural order", and as long as the west is dependant on oil from the middle-east, no long-term meaningful change will ever be accomplished by the US beyond its borders.

Democracy is not for everyone,
unless everyone is for Democracy.

This should then really evolve into a thread
on how religion really rules the world.