U.S. Power, Restraint Fulfill Mission of Preserving Liberty

The country we are fortunate to call home is wonderfully strange within the community of nations. In the United States we possess the ability to shape and to chart our own course. Both history and the present tell us how unusual this is.

When talking to someone for the first time, rarely do we discuss where they come from or who their parents are. Instead, the focus tends toward where they are going and what they want to do or become. Little wonder immigrants continue to pound at America's door. There are means here for them to have a voice in important national debates even as they build a better life.

Hard work and a tenacious, disciplined resolve can allow one to rise from obscure poverty to leadership on behalf of their fellow citizens. Consider Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton -- all in the last 60 years alone.

And the futurism, generosity and culture of tolerance allow for a hugely diverse population to live as peaceful neighbors, family and friends.

Also noteworthy is that a country whose economic system might have been wholly dependent upon slavery soon followed the British in abolishing that most evil and inhumane of institutions. Now the United States is at the forefront of ending systematic slaughter and promoting pluralism in places where that type of bondage still flourishes -- nowhere more heartbreaking than against the people of southern Sudan.

Unfortunately, the likes of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn are at present quite fashionable on college campuses. They are quick to blame the ills of the world on the United States (or Israel, whichever). Yet on the global stage we exist, quite necessarily, as what British historian Paul Johnson has termed the "leviathan" -- safeguarding against the gulags and blackmail of rogue states in constant pursuit of more terrible weapons.

It was, after all, American bombs that finally ended the massacre of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, not the endless talk of Europe. It was the United States that allowed for Afghan girls to go to school for the first time in almost a decade. Eastern Europe remains solidly pro-American to this day because it remembers the lethal hopelessness of communism.

Soon American troops will help to provide some sort of government much more accountable to the poorest of the poor in Iraq, thus ending Saddam Hussein's labyrinth of torture within a police state that also threatens its neighbors and our own security with a stable of hidden weapons.

One must perform gymnastics with reality to arrive at the conclusion of a selfish, oppressive "imperialism," as America's critics love to charge. What other nation of unsurpassed hegemony would refuse forceful conquest or use its wealth to counter mass suffering?

The largely benign and incredible power of American influence helped to rebuild Japan and Germany into prosperous liberal democracies. Others will hopefully soon have greater opportunities far beyond an existence in constant fear.

An Iraq on the road to democracy will embolden others who seek their freedom, especially the young people of Iran who bravely demonstrate in the streets against tyrannical mullahs. It also will halt Hussein's effort to stamp out entire peoples and civilizations, especially the ancient Assyrian Christians.

Winning the fight against the utopian horrors of the last century, be they Japanese militarism, communism, fascism and now Islamic-based extremism means we are free to pursue our own ends. Let us remember how liberating it is to have a say in determining our own futures.

This unusual nation is unusual for a very good reason. America exists against the tide of a most unfortunate global reality, as individual rights and human dignity are far too often trampled upon by those with little concern beyond holding onto power for one more day.

Reach Jonathan Jones at jonjones@email.unc.edu.