The star-spangled delusion-Asia Times Online

[go west young man]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JB16Ak03.html

Since the end of World War II, no US administration has indulged American idealism to the degree - and with the recklessness - that President George W Bush has. Previous presidents were better able to balance our raw idealism with our realist objectives, even though they often spoke the language of morality to the American people - telling us that we were the planet's moral beacon - while quietly ensuring that our impulses be checked by a cold dose of caution and realism. For better or worse, it was inevitable that our own idealism (or more cynically, our self-righteousness) would lead us to overreach.