No, this piece has it all wrong – at least so says correspondent Adam Clymer of the NY Times, who has a piece in today’s paper on America’s relinquishment of the Panama Canal – an act, says Clymer, that highlights what a genial giant the good ol’ USA is these days. Excerpt:
“Out of a late 20th-century sense of sovereignty and respect for somebody else's national pride, a great power is in fact voluntarily giving a piece of valuable national property to a tiny nation with no capacity to seize it.
“With the end of the cold war, the venturesome role of presidents like the first Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson seems to have given way, if not fully to the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist views of Woodrow Wilson, then at least to a sense of the importance of consultation and coalition before bombs are dropped. In Korea and Vietnam, the United States acted first, then looked for allies. In the Persian Gulf and Kosovo, it sought allies first.
“Even President Clinton's decision to stay away from the ceremony, though it caused disappointment and even criticism here, meant that the United States would not dominate the day. …
“On most international issues, from global warming to trade to poison gas or atomic bombs, the United States government seeks agreements among many or all nations. It often fails, and frequently does not convince its own people of the need for sacrifice some see in these agreements. But even when it acts unilaterally, as by raising tariffs on some French luxury foods, it follows procedures authorized internationally.”
Clearly, America’s a mensch among nations ;-)
Carl
______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com