The Indispensable Nation

George Scialabba

Imagine that the scales fall from the eyes of some egregious exponent of American exceptionalism – Thomas Friedman, for example. Somehow or other, the horrendous toll of American policies in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America since World War II is brought home to him for the first time, along with the complete lack of any relation between those policies and democracy, legality, or the welfare of the victims. Imagine also that, after donning sackcloth and ashes for an appropriate period, Friedman wishes to make reparation for the harm he had done by his cheerleading for American foreign policy over several decades.