>You do understand, however, that the goal of US foreign policy is to advance the interests of the US and not to please EU citizens, any more than the goal of Dutch foreign policy should be to poll well in Iowa. While I think it is unfortunate when everyone doesn't see the world the way we do ( or more importantly , the way I do <g>), I think it is understandable and as long as we are truly acting in our own best interests ( and that is not to say I think current administration policy is in our own best interests ) then we have done exactly what any nation must do in answering to its own citizens.

There's also the matter of politics being too important to be left to politicians. There are several flaws in the current system, which make the policy actually detrimental to the benefit of the citizens it is supposedly intended to serve.

First, it's mostly shortsighted. Any action abroad is either geared toward buying-creating-forwarding interests of corporations (not the American economy as a whole), or toward earning brownie points for the next election. In most cases, it also ignores long term goals and doesn't look beyond next year or two.

It also comes across as completely blind to reason when it comes to serving its own political agenda. The goal justifies the means. No dictator is too bad if it can help us against Communism. Two of such typical cases are Saddam (former CIA's good kid) and the Taliban (who were pretty much created just to straddle the Soviets with their own Vietnam war).

The long term goal of any country should be to live peacefully with anyone they can, and to have friends everywhere - it's so much easier (and cheaper) to get through open doors. But corporate greed controls too much of the policy. Just count the countries which are badmouthed on mainstream media (including BBC) - typically those which gave the wrong answer to the question "who owns your oil".

In any corporate accounting, there's an account called "goodwill". It's expressed in real money. Somehow I think that USA, Inc. doesn't care too much of that account.