Amen

For some reason I was really struck by this op-ed piece from the Washington Post. I'm not so naive as to believe that US foreign policy has always been benign over the years, but it just seems that ever since 9/11 the nation has lost a big part of what it used to stand for. (And as someone whose house is only a couple of miles from the Pentagon and who used to work a few blocks from the World Trade Center, I don't mean to minimise the profound effect of 9/11.) We have a vice president fighting for the right to use torture, getting through most US airports is about as appealing as a dental examination, we're making it much more difficult and unpleasant for foreign students to attend US universities, Washington is a city of cement barricades...something about it all is just really unfortunate and sad.