Lee Harris articulates the vice-like current alternatives of US-World relations: "If the international community supported the First Gulf War overwhelmingly, which clearly it did, it is morally committed to supporting the current policy of the United States and the failure to realize this connection can be most charitably ascribed to intellectual dishonesty. "Since the United States is the only nation in the world that is willing to play this role, let alone capable of playing it, there are only three ways that it can relate to the international community: either as its lackey, or as its leader, or as its tyrant. "The world cannot really expect the United States to be its lackey, and certainly doesn't want it to be its tyrant. And this leaves them only one choice. "Those who are now currently refusing to accept America's moral right to lead at this point are betraying the very ideals they pretend to champion—you cannot have world peace until someone enforces it; but no one who is powerful enough to enforce it can be persuaded to enforce it like a flunkey—it is utopianism to think otherwise." http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-012803A ============================================== Comment: Yet surely there must be an alternative libertarian or democratic vision for US-World relations? But who will articulate an alternative to the Republican one of the US as "World Policeman?" Call it "world regionalism?" Empower localities to "police" the dictators that remain or emerge? --Orson
