Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
...provided that it is to fuel the first progressive Arab regime, and not just our S.U.V.'s, and provided we behave in a way that makes clear to the world we are protecting everyone's access to oil at reasonable prices — not simply our right to binge on it.
Friedman sounds naive compared to 1999 when, in an much quoted March 28 column, he wrote:
For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technology is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
In less than four years Friedman has gone from understanding that the U.S. military does what it does to promote American power to thinking that the U.S. is in the business of making the world a better place for the sake of making the world a better place, with a coincidental advantage of promoting U.S. economic interests.
Michael Ignatieff has written an interesting piece that argues an American empire is now necessary and then lists some concerns and potential problems that the project entails. Whatever your opinion on this matter, you should try to read what Ignatieff has written. posted by micah holmquist at 1/06/2003 12:10:00 PM
