US Engagement with Religion in Conflict-Prone Settings

[marct]

Hi Bob,

If we back off from current rhetoric tied to specific current U.S. values, and instead fall back to promoting (and then enabling) the sound populace -empowering principles upon which the U.S. was founded, I suspect we would have a far more favorable impact.

Well, as a descendant of United Empire Loyalists, I'm not sure I would agree with those being founding values .

But, yes, that would be a crucial step to delineating exactly what is being "sold". Part of the current problem has been to tie the foundational principles in with both current political rhetoric and issues of national interest. This has led to a situation where it is tricky for people outside of the US to figure out what you are pushing for (even in Canada!).

The problem is that we just can't relinquish control. You can't promote democracy as the end all solution to good governance on one hand; and then refuse to recognize the officials that a populace elects simply becuase they hold positions counter to our own. The hipocrisy of such actions harms our national credibility tremendously.

Yup - 'tis a real problem especially given the perception that historically, the US has gone with national interest over principle (I'm thinking of the propaganda coming out of Nicaragua and the early phase of Vietnam). If we look at the two current wars, the stance towards Iraq seems to be less hypocritical now, certainly when compared with the recent problems in Afghanistan.

Personally, I think part of the problem is a confusion of form and function. For example, I personally suspect that Afghanistan would be a lot more stable today if the monarchy had been restored, but we will never know...

We must provide a good example, and we must help enable popular sovereignty and self determination. Once we seek to lead more than control, our credibility stock will begin to rise once again.

Totally agree with that .