Overall, excellent recommendations. But, the section on withdrawing all U.S. troops, and the logic for doing so, seems flawed. I thoroughly concur that the U.S. should not be in the business of empire-building, or use force to topple "non-democratic" governments. That has been a failed policy whether talking about Panama, Chile, Iraq, or elsewhere. What I take exception to is the idea that we should turn inward, that we have "no moral responsibility for the destiny of persons outside [our] jurisdiction who pay no taxes to support the government and pledge no allegiance to the republic."

Really, that's where we want to go? I happen to think that our (multilateral) intervention in Bosnia saved lives and ultimately reflected positively on this country's standing in the world. If the author is saying that we should not have an obligation to intervene in every country that mistreats its citizens, I agree. If he is saying that we have no moral responsibility to intervene in genocides or threats to our allies, I do not agree. Like it or not, we are the dominant military and cultural force in the world, and with that leadership comes certain responsibilities. We can't only be leaders when it's convenient for us. The "cowboy mentality" of the past seven years is not the proper way to display leadership, but neither is turning inward, shutting out the world community, and working on technological means to protect ourselves. Just as nation-building is not the answer, neither is isolationism. The only real way to protect ourselves is to be an integrated part of the world we live in. Ultimately, it's in our own self-interest.

I too was taken aback by the recommendation for withdrawing all troops from abroad. However, this can be separable from the question of our moral responsibility in situations like Rawanda or Darfur. The rationale for our stationing troops in over 100 countries is simply that we are an imperial power, so the basic question is whether the American people actually want to garrison an empire. I would think and hope not.

You may have noticed that China is cleaning our clock while not having a military imperial presence. In fact it can be argued that they are more powerful than the U.S. in the sense of the proportion of their international policy preferences that are actualized. Our overreaching military presence makes us resented and less powerful than we might otherwise be.

I believe what the writer ment was we don't go running into every situation in order to do the maximum amout of "fixing" the goverment believes is needed.Or to do crap for the benefit of an economic idea that throws moral concerns out the window for the sake of nothing but profit for the few.We do need to go in when the situation is dire and world threatining(not meaning threatining to one groups profit margin.If they take the chance and invest in an unstable arena ,then THEY took the chance ,not the american citizen)Do the minimum and get out .No more quagmires.

Agree with the posters above. Among other things, I'm pretty sure that taxes are not the root of moral responsibility. Good grief.

I agree with everyone - all we are doing is spending ungodly amounts of money to create countries that resent our presence, or should be footing their part of the bill. We may have interests in other countries, but that doesn't mean we have the right to supersede their laws. When human rights issues rise to the appropriate threshold, there's the UN, and if the UN is as ineffective as usual, we can consider other coalitions. But being the world's policeman is too costly and yields too little benefit.