I am becoming convinced that the "moral value" that religious liberals must proclaim to the world is that one can not achieve just ends by unjust means. The idea that one can "defend freedom" by violating the rights of citizens is just as absurd as the notion that one can install "Iraqi freedom" by invasion and mass violence against the civilian population. Peace can only be achieved by non-violence, and justice can only result from just works.
Columnist Bob Herbert in today's New York Times argues that G.W. Bush has ignored the wise counsel of Edward R. Murrow, who memorably told us, "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
He continues: "few things are more important than making sure that a president with a demonstrated tendency to abuse the powers of his office is not allowed to lay the foundation for the systematic surveillance of the American people. For a president - any president - to O.K. eavesdropping on U.S. citizens on American soil without a warrant is an abomination. First, it's illegal - and for very good reasons. Spying on the populace is a giant step toward totalitarianism. In the worst-case scenario, it's the nightmare of Soviet-style surveillance."
It was our failure to intervene in Bosnia and Rwanda that began by transformation to radical interventionist.
I voted for Gore in 2000 because I was unhappy with Bush's attacks on Clinton's Nation building.
There is a cost, including a moral cost, of doing nothing. I felt that shame when we did nothing for so long in Bosnia, and nothing at all in Africa.
Bush and Rice are right when they say our values as a people, and our national sefl interests are now one.
They really have converged and we're obligated I believe to intervene in failed states because it's the right thing to do, and they just pose huge security risks now as havens for terrorists.
Apparently you find it hard to lay down that white man's burden,
but the "moral cost" of killing civilians so that corporate US can extend their control over a oil producing state is left out of your real politic rationalization
I reject the notion that "national interests" are really be discerned in Iraq. The moral values of (white North) America are being manipulated for narrow corporate interests.