<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2614.3500" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>  <P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-SIZE: 10pt">Hi all,</SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal> </P><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">I've been looking into Leo Strauss and came across an interesting passage, perhaps relevant to the current American foreign policy. In Natural Right and History Strauss asked: "are cities [i.e. citiy-states or political entities in general] not compelled to use force and fraud to take away from other cities what belongs to the latter, if they are to prosper? Do they not come into being by usurping a part of the earth's surface which by nature belongs to all others?" </SPAN></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>