perspective

[the_orf]

This just in...

WASHINGTON - A congressional advisory panel on Thursday questioned China's willingness to be a more responsible international player, saying world prosperity depends on China's abandoning a single-minded pursuit of its "own narrow national interests."

The rest of the article is here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_ ... o/us_china

Pot, kettle. Kettle, this is pot.

Not that the U.S. doesn't do a bunch of nice things around the world, but the nice things usually have some strings attached, and those strings very much favor "narrow national interests."

Former presidential advisor Clyede Prestowitz's outstanding 2003 book "Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions" cites some telling survey results from an international poll. One poll topic went something like, "The U.S.A.'s foreign policy does not take into account the interests of any country other than itself." About 70% of Americans polled disagreed with the statement.

More than 90% of everybody from outside the U.S. agreed with it.

Ahh, to see the world through different eyes...

[York99]

More than 90% of everybody from outside the U.S. agreed with it.

Were any of the people polled the recipients of our trillions of dollars of international aid each year?

And I would answer the same way if the question was about any other nation in the world. I don't know what Finland does to help any other country besides Finland. Let's crucify THEM on the international stage for once.