Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
Dayuhan, Bob,
With all my respect for both of you, the point is not do the US have the capacity to make them do what we want but rather do the US have the capacity to understand what they want to be done for them.
I agree, absolutely, and I think all too often we simply assume that others want what we think we'd want in their place, or that what we want is so self-evidently righteous that everybody else must want it as well. This is why I think we need to back off on installing governments, trying to change governments, or trying to insert ourselves as self-appointed champions of any other populace. These actions might, in very rare cases, be necessary or desirable, but if we go around pushing our presence where it is neither needed nor wanted we are likely to accomplish little and create a lot of trouble.