Gore and American Values

In keeping with a Memorial Day theme, we are reflecting on the values that guide our country's military presence in the world. A piece extracted from Al Gore's The Assault on Reason and reprinted in The Guardian starts like this:

The pursuit of "dominance" in foreign policy led the Bush administration to ignore the UN, to do serious damage to our most important alliances, to violate international law, and to cultivate the hatred and contempt of many in the rest of the world. The seductive appeal of exercising unconstrained unilateral power led this president to interpret his powers under the constitution in a way that brought to life the worst nightmare of the founders. Any policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the US and recruits for al-Qaida, but also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating terrorists who wish to harm and intimidate America. Instead of "dominance", we should be seeking pre-eminence in a world where nations respect us and seek to follow our leadership and adopt our values. A drive for global domination has put us in greater danger

Again, there's so much to say.