THOSE WHO CAN'T, TEACH:

White Man's Burden (PAUL KRUGMAN, September 24, 2002, NY Times)

Of course the new Bush doctrine, in which the United States will seek "regime change" in nations that we judge might be future threats, is driven by high moral purpose. But McKinley-era imperialists also thought they were morally justified. The war with Spain--which ruled its colonies with great brutality, but posed no threat to us--was justified by an apparent act of terror, the sinking of the battleship Maine, even though no evidence ever linked that attack to Spain. And the purpose of our conquest of the Philippines was, McKinley declared, "to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them."

Moral clarity aside, the parallel between America's pursuit of manifest destiny a century ago and its new global sense of mission has a lot to teach us.

Mr. Krugman is right that the Philippines has a lot to teach us. Thanks to our imperialism it is in fact a Christian nation, one of the few democracies in the non-Western world and a historic ally. Such is the happy fate of most states where we "meddle". Posted by Orrin Judd at September 24, 2002 9:43 AM