[RickC]

No matter how the modern world tries to gloss over human nature, it still jumps up and bites us in the a** sometimes.

Every age thinks it is too civilized to go to war, to allow one society to crush another, or to allow the existence of injustice.

But every age wars and crushes and suffers nevertheless. Human nature has not improved appreciably since the dawn of recorded time.

Mark Twain said:

"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."

"All say, 'How hard it is that we have to die' - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live."



What horrible choices we have to make as human beings! How tough it is to try and be moral in an immoral world!

Yes, even a Superpower has limits, and no, the U.S. will not and cannot protect everyone, everywhere.

The U.S. is a nation, and it can only protect or destroy other nations. But if there is no nation - Yugoslavia or other civil wars - we can do nothing (see Vietnam). Nor can our huge army defend a wife against a husband, or an innocent child from an angry bullet.

But the fact that we have limitations does not mean we can never police the world, just that we need to know if and when we can.

Whether we SHOULD police the world - well, that's the question really. And the answer is yes and no.

Morally, yes, of course. We are powerful, and thus have a duty to help all those we can, and not let anyone suffer.

Legally, practically, no, of course not. We aren't our brother's keepers. Iraqis should have taken care of Saddam themselves, and if a people show by their inaction that they accept a tough, murderous leader, it's not our problem.

Hence our vacillation, inconsistency, and just plain humanity. Are others around the world confused? Then they just don't understand the human race. Looking across the Ages from the beginnings of agriculture to the beginnings of bioengineering, I'm betting most people couldn't do any better.

But we need to keep trying, learning from our mistakes and doing our best. Anything less is a disservice to the human race. And constant repetition of what we do wrong - said in order to stop progress rather than redirect it - is the kind of 600 year-old recrimination that holds so much of the world back from Churchill's sunlit uplands of peace.