THERE IS NO ONE LATERAL :

Bush's Go-It-Alone Policy Is to Go Nowhere (James Klurfeld, August 29, 2002, Newsday)

Is there a reason now to be more inclined to the unilateral approach than back then? Actually the opposite is true. In the late 1940s, in the wake of all the destruction done by the war, the United States was the strongest power in the world, militarily and economically, and there was nobody else close. Today, power - especially economic power - is much more evenly distributed. The United States is still the pre-eminent military power, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Germany and Japan are economic powers themselves, and the U.S. economy cannot dominate the rest of the world.

You don't need to look very far in your newspaper to see how profoundly mistaken Mr. Klurfeld is in his assertion. Here's a for instance : Tokyo stocks close at 19-year low : Tokyo's key stock index closed at 9,217.04 points Tuesday, a 19-year low, despite government reassurances that Japan's economy has bottomed out. (AP, 9/03/02).
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2002 2:30 PM