What is your way? Ruthless realism? It sounds to me like your way is to have complete freedom to do anything you want in the name of America without tolerance for those who would point out the ambiguities of political and military action. The only principle I hear is expediency.
> We should be ashamed of what happened in Guatemala. We > should be a lot more ashamed of what happened in Cambodia, where > we had the > chance to do something and didn't - and it wasn't because of > people like me > that we didn't. Oh, but it *was* people like you. And like me. Americans. Nick But I'm the one who understands the ambiguity, Nick, while you're only condemning those who had to deal with it. You get all the appearance of virtue without any of the responsibility - an enviable position, but not an affordable one when there are consequences to your decision. Ambiguity means that there aren't clear moral choices. My way is simple. The principled and enlightened pursuit of national interests. As Robert Kagan argues, the preservation of American power is the foremost duty of American politics, because only American power can spread our liberal ideals throughout the world - making the preservation of that power a moral duty. The enlightened pursuit of national interests is the most moral way for a nation to act, as people from Machiavelli to Robert Kaplan have understood. Your principles are, as far as I can tell, a matter of moral convenience. You get to keep your hands clean and not worry about the rest of the world - as long as _you_ aren't involved. I have neither sympathy nor patience for that view. We are involved. When we aren't involved, far worse things happen than when we are. Americans yes, but not Americans who are very much like me. Americans who were so twisted by their own perspective on their country and so filled with self-loathing that they would rather abandon millions of people to death by genocide than allow their own country to act. I don't really feel that I have very much in common with Americans like that. Cambodia stands as the best example for why my arguments will work - because I wouldn't have left those people to die. I would have done anything to stop it - including working with right-wing dictators who would never, ever, ever have done anything that approached that. The pursuit of American national interests is a moral obligation upon the American government - in fact, it is the _foremost_ moral obligation upon the American government. One of the things that makes the United States special is precisely the fact that liberal ideals and our national interests are in consonance. But not always perfectly. The international regime is not a liberal area. Sometimes you can't act that way, and to fail to act as you should because it makes you uncomfortable is immoral. I'm making a different claim than you think, Nick, because I'm making the same claim that you are. _My way of conducting international politics is far more moral than yours_. I'm not aruging for the absence of morality - I'm arguing that your vision is immoral. That pragmatism and prudence are, in international politics, _moral virtues_, and that to disregard them is _immoral_. I'm further arguing that specific historical incidents - WW2, Cambodia, and right now in Afghanistan, provide an empirical test of my arguments, and they succeed every time. Gautam
