“America’s Moral Menopause”

That’s the title of an article in the April 19 on-line edition of al-Ahram, Egypt’s leading daily newspaper.

The article starts off:

For almost 200 years, the US has claimed the moral high ground in world affairs. As it prospered, it looked on a wretched global scene of war, poverty, dictatorship, conquest, exploitation, colonial rule and the denial of human rights. Imbued with a new sense of global power following allied victories in World War I and World War II, the US soon changed from the acclaimed position of moral guru to that of the scion of imperial power. When the US withdraws from Iraq in defeat it will leave the Middle East/Gulf region in a state of unparalleled chaos and instability, a political vacuum remaining that not even massive US military presence in the region could fill. It has unleashed forces it cannot control and is trying to contain them by maintaining a decrepit status quo. The short-lived American empire is inexorably entering its period of political and moral menopause. It would do the US, and the turbulent world it has created, well if it retreated from its failed ideology of neo-conservatism into an era of neo- isolationism.

I never thought I’d find in al-Ahram with which to agree. But that’s what six years of George W. Bush can do to you.

The entire article is here.

— David Gradis

If you’d like to share a comment, click on the word “COMMENTS” below, to the left of the envelope icon.