Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Unfortunately, we also used our superpower position to carry out acts of aggression and crimes against humanity. We dropped nuclear weapons on two large cities in Japan, killing 200,000 innocent civilians. We have used bribery to export abortion and contraception to the Third World. We have given enormous amounts of military and financial aid to Israel, which it has harnessed to oppress the Palestinian people and sabotage their society. And since the end of the Cold War we have abused our position to defend and protect the unrestrained corporate interests of a few capricious Western entrepreneurs, while decreasing economic development aid to Africa and Latin America.

Our strength intimidates foreign nations more than ever before in the post-9/11 world because we are using almost all of it for evil. We have the power to enforce our will in violation of international law and the Law of God, and we are doing so. Instead of promoting the welfare of all peoples and nations, we are allowing the scourge of big business to exploit and destroy and ruthlessly utilizing our military force to guard that unjust accumulation of wealth. Our military activities are most pronounced in the Middle East because of that region's substantial petroleum deposits. Nevertheless, giant Western firms have penetrated more than one hundred countries on every continent. In the past few decades we have installed, propped up or tolerated tyrannical regimes in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, China, Colombia, Argentina, Sudan, Zaire, South Africa, Vietnam, Singapore, and many other countries to enable Western big businesses to operate with impunity.

All these examples of our high-handedness have soured our reputation abroad, generating an anti-Americanism that is much more prevalent than Hannity would like to believe. Foreign peoples are truly afraid of the United States, as they have branded our foreign policies "terrorist". Hannity's specious allegation represents a failure to acknowledge all the facts and a gross failure to be in touch with other nations, who are on the receiving end of our foreign policy. Moreover, we in America have for the most part not been victims of foreign military occupation and economic injustice. We do not know what it is like to be subjected to the whims of foreign powers. Thus we should not be so quick to assume that other nations love our displays of strength.  

With its awesome economic and military might, America is capable of tremendous good in the world; but unfortunately, it has fallen far short of its potential by misusing its power for greed, imperialism and domination, as Pope John Paul the Great warned against in his remarkably perceptive encyclical, The Redeemer of Man.