An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the 'War on Terror'

AN OCCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN: INTELLECTUALS AND THE "WAR ON TERROR"- DAVID
KEEN (COUNTERPUNCH, SEPTEMBER 1/2): The road to this hellish 'war on terror' has
been paved with good intentions as well as bad. A noxious cocktail of
self-interest and self-delusion has nurtured the dangerous and deluded view that
justice -- like God, Halliburton and history -- is 'on our side.'
http://www.counterpunch.org/keen09012007.html

THE BREAKING POINT - ROGER COHEN (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 3): For many
around the world, sympathy has turned to alienation over six years, and that's
something else Americans have had to learn to live with, the feeling that we owe
an explanation of the inexplicable, a step-by-step guide of how we got from
there to here, an accounting of who we really are and, you know, it's not us
doing the fingerprinting and we still like rock 'n' roll.
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/opinion/03cohen.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1188814151-B+vTHA37aue4yDKqCabwEQ&pagewanted=print
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

THE U.S. INTO AN ILL-FATED WAR - DAVID MILNE (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER
2): What happens next in US diplomacy is anyone's guess, but there is a distinct
possibility that history will repeat itself and America will move toward a more
modest role in the world. After a period of frenetic activism on the
international stage, it appears highly probable that President Obama, Clinton,
Giuliani or Romney will look to a pragmatist -- a George Kennan or a Kissinger
-- rather than an ideologue like Rostow or Wolfowitz for foreign policy advice.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-milne2sep02,0,136845.story?coll=la-opinion-center

BET ON AMERICA JOEL ACHENBACH (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 2): The evidence
for our nation's downward spiral isn't sufficient to rule out the very opposite
possibility: that the United States will become, in purely geopolitical terms,
even stronger in coming decades.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2007/09/bet_on_america.html?nav=rss_blog

AMERICA, ABROAD OPINION (BALTIMORE SUN, AUGUST 26): The United States has
a habit of turning its ugliest face outward, toward the rest of the world; this
should change, but it won't be done with soldiers. As Lt. Col. David J.
Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert, memorably points out, the United States
employs more military musicians than diplomats and aid workers combined.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.us26aug26002635,0,2939964.story

NOTES FROM A GADFLY: AN OUTSPOKEN LINGUIST SOUNDS OFF ON AMERICAN
IMPERIALISM [REVIEW OF INTERVENTIONS BY NOAM CHOMSKY] - JONATHAN RAUCH
(WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 2): As all who have read Chomsky know, he believes
that "every form of authority and domination bears a severe burden of proof."
The United States is the world's mightiest power, and its survival instinct,
like that of all great powers, is the "imperial mentality" of domination and
control. America, for Chomsky, has long been a major perpetrator of state
terror; but now, with the advent of the Bush administration, "The most powerful
state in history has proclaimed that it intends to control the world by force."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/30/AR2007083001568_pf.html

AS HER STAR WANES, RICE TRIES TO RESHAPE LEGACY - HELENE COOPER (NEW YORK
TIMES, SEPTEMBER 2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/washington/01rice.html?pagewanted=print