>The Atlantic is a big ocean on these questions. We have different
>perspectives and different background cultures to reference. I do not know
>Rieff at all
Rieff is the author of an essay on liberal imperialism - which he's for, like his mother, Susan Sontag. (Back in the 1980s, Edmund White described a duo much like David & Susan as entering a room, "all self-love & fabulousness.") I posted the conclusion to that essay here a while back. The list archives will be open any day now, but in the meanwhile, I'll re-send the Rieff excerpt to anyone who wants it.
Doug