What I am talking about is the condition of the world today, where most third world countries are hostile to us.

This is for a lot of reasons. Sure, we've made mistakes - but that hostility (which is conveiently not around when they want us) would be there. For our riches, for our strength, for our peace.

Is it any wonder that the people of the third world hate us?

Most really don't care all that much. And the ones that know - would still rather be IN the US...

Would fighting \ufffdfair\ufffd have cost us much more, in lives and in dollars? I am almost certain that it would have. However, by making that investment ahead of time, by being willing to back our ideals with our own lives, and to spread those ideals to others without backing our own terrorists, we would not have ostracized as many people as we have.

We don't know.

There's a saying "Hindsight is 20/20". Bullshit. Hindsight can get just as distorted as prophesy.

What would have happened with nuclear missiles in Cuba? If we hadn't opposed the Soviet Union, and caused its collapse?

Unknown.
Not enough data.
Divide by 0 error.

Who .....

Who kept the Saudi B/Millionaires free from Saddam Hussein in order to finance Bin Ladin? Who keeps buying oil from the middle east?

But to ignore our own complicity in giving these people fertile ground to grow their hatred, and giving them real reasons to hate us, we have lost the moral high ground.

I'm all for not ignoring mistakes we've made.

But neither did we give "fertile ground", I think, to most of what you've said.

Most/almost all of the "hatred" in the middle east is because we back Israel. That's it. That we've sold them weapons, and support them in their existance.

How do you change that? How do you "fight that fair"? How many people are you willing to sacrifice to be wrong?

Because a lot of this does come down to that. How many people? And there's no "going back and doing it over" when you decide that it was the wrong tack to take. Vietnam in many facets was a mistake, but there's not hatred there. Should we have done nothing as the Communists shot and killed our allies?

Sometimes you don't get a chance to do it right. Especially dealing with other people - you don't get to make sure they're seeing things your way.

Addison