Individualistic Liberalism?

Submitted by Calisse Cansime (United States), Jan 14, 2003 at 11:22

Dear Mr Pipes,

You write, "there is the American model of...individualistic liberalism". Really?

The original culprit for 9/11 was Osama bin Laden, which doesn't explain why Bush is
rather itching to have a go at Saddam Hussein using a vague "weapons of mass destruction"
reasoning. True, his regime is undemocratic, but I fail to find a single Arab state which isn't,
even if not a monarchy. There isn't any message of individualistic liberalism message here, just an
immense greed for petroleum.

The Al Qaeda, which was harboured by the Taliban, caused 9/11. The Al Qaeda is made up of mainly
Saudi and Pakistani volunteers. The Taliban was founded in Pakistan and Pakistan installed the Taliban
government in Afghanistan. Yet America showered favours on Pakistan despite Pakistan's mosques
screaming "Death to America" every Friday, with far greater hatred than any other instance of
anti-Americanism one comes across.

We all know Sudan openly practises human slavery (Christian Dinka children are captured
and sold to Sudanese Arabs) and Zimbabwe presently has an inflation rate of 2000% with a
suffering population. If the US loves being the world's messiah of "individualistic liberalism", why does
it bother far more about Iraq than these countries?

Unless these facts be proven false, I rest my case.

In my humble opinion, while the common people of America may be blissfully ignorant of how
large parts of the world have to suffer to help them fill their "gas-guzzlers" with "gasoline", America's
policies and interests on world domination simply boil down to one thing: a short sighted greed for petroleum
and the need to keep enough people enslavened by the petroleum industry.

This also explains why politicians in America don't talk too much about eco-friendly utilities (eg
alcohol or electric powered vehicles). Else, despite landing a man on the moon over 30 years ago, why
is America still incapable of doing much to reduce toxic emissions? They aren't interested.

Being the world's most powerful nation the USA can afford to do what it likes even if it be unfair to
other countries and get away with it, as it does now. Yet, the US could have acted more responsibly
on its foreign policies and won friends from all over. To an American politician, I'm sure the latter path
would have constituted a more dignified way to exude his patriotism.

But as things stand, the catchword of US foreign policy isn't individualistic liberalism. It's greed.

Sincere regards,
Calisse.

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