Perspectives
Index

About 
perspectives

Perspectives
on education 

Perspectives 
on housing 

Perspectives
on foreign affairs

Last updated September 09, 2005 .

Demonstration in Italy 

The United States is uniquely equipped to act as the new sovereign in the world today, not simply because of its power--but because of its tolerance.
 . . . 

       Its diversity reflects that of the world--and this means that for the first time in world history, a great power is genuinely capable of transcending the limitations to human cooperation imposed by divisions along the lines of race, sect and ethnicity. . . .

      The civilization that the United States is now called upon to defend is not America's or even the "West's"--it is the civilization created by all men and women, everywhere on the planet.

      We act on behalf of all people who have worked to make the actual community around them less addicted to violence, more open, more tolerant, more trusting. Civilization, in this sense, is Chinese, American, African, European and Muslim.  

Excerpt from an essay adapted from Lee Harris's book Civilization and Its Enemies, quoted in James Taranto's "Best of the Web," Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal, January 24, 2005.

Scott Baldauf, "India and Pakistan balk at bold Kashmir peace plan," Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 2004:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this week urged steps to end the bitter dispute.

     New Delhi:  Within hours of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's dramatic proposal this Monday to demilitarize the disputed region of Kashmir, both India and Pakistan demurred. . . .

     Ironically, what appeared to be a breakthrough only underscored both countries' inability to resolve even the simplest matters in the 57-year territorial dispute that has sparked three wars and cost tens of thousands of Kashmiri lives.

     Observers blame timing, politics, and military power.  (continued)

Henry Kissinger, "America's Assignment, What Will We Face the Next Four Years," Newsweek, October 31, 2004:

As these lines are being written, the election process is still in full swing. But this week, barring another deadlocked outcome, the campaign that has mesmerized America will be over. What will remain are the challenges that gave rise to this occasionally frenzied battle and the responsibility of dealing with them. No president has faced an agenda of comparable scope. This is not hyperbole; it is the hand history has dealt this generation. Never before has it been necessary to conduct a war with neither front lines nor geographic definition and, at the same time, to rebuild fundamental principles of world order to replace the traditional ones which went up in the smoke of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  (continued)