05/23/05

An interventionist U.S. foreign policy, fueled by the Bush administration's messianic zeal to make the world more democratic, has contributed to a dramatic rise in radical political Islam around the world. In fact, the current administration's campaign is even more ambitious than Woodrow Wilson's naïve policy of 'making the world safe for democracy.' Provided that the Bush administration is actually sincere about its rhetoric (which is questionable given its mild criticism of despotic allies, such as the governments of Egypt and Uzbekistan, which have recently cracked down on dissidents or simply shot them en masse), both the Wilson and Bush policies derive from a virulent strain of American 'exceptionalism,' the idea that the United States is special among the nations of the world...

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1514

from Independent Institute, by Ivan Eland


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp