Sarnian,

I agree that US policy could be so much better. I have argued that Australian society itself is light years ahead of the US in terms of avoiding unecessary social cleavages.

My concern is about declining Western influence, led by the US, notably the gains made in terms of international governance and so on. I also have little faith in societies that do not accept pluralism.

BTW, I also argued in Quadrant that unilateral action in Iraq without a UN mandate was one of the worst ever decsions by liberal democracies.

Chris Lewis,

"....unilateral action in Iraq without a UN mandate was one of the worst ever decisions by liberal democracies."

Well, yes, yes, yes!

But it was so obvious from the outset that it was based on a monumentally flawed premise - and yet, despite all that was said and done in protest in the lead up to the invasion, the U.S. juggernaut rolled ahead.

We could see as plain as day that it was a bad decision. Apologists for the Bush Administration, and neoliberal ethics in general, now seem to regularly cite the Iraqi debacle as some sort of aberration "that shouldn't have happened".

The point being that a superpower (with whom we happen to be allied) is a dangerous entity when it just rolls along in its own interest - because it can.

Just out of interest, the U.S. fiscal situation doesn't seem to be making any headway out of its mire. Around five months ago government debt topped 15 trillion - which made headlines. As you can see in the link, it is now well on its way to 16 trillion (103.6 percent of annual GDP)
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

There is nothing more difficult than trying to persuade someone of a viewpoint they have pre-determined they do not want to accept. This is abundantly clear when writers such as Mr Lewis concede that perhaps the US isn't perfect but really, they do mean well and they are surely better than (take your pick of sundry international enemies du jour).
Unfortunately such a view is as seriously flawed as the Americans own view of themselves encapsulated in the oft-quoted phrase of 'American exceptionalism'.
It is not just since WW2 that the US has been the chief purveyor of international violence, responsible for the deaths of well over 30 million people, as Blum and others have documented. The fact is the Americans have been killing people who get in their way ever since the first Pilgrims stepped ashore in the 17th century. Historians now consider the "settlers" to have been responsible for the killing of approximately 9 million native Americans, a genocidal program that even by today's cynical standards is still an impressive rate of killing.
Yet despite the evidence Mr Lewis and others like him continue to insist that it is in Australia's interest to be closely allied with such a monstrous history.
I agree with him that Iraq was a "mistake" but it was also much much more. It was a crime. The perpetrators of that invasion and occupation, which destroyed the most advanced nation in the Middle East, have entirely escaped culpability for their crimes. The US does not even recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and brings enormous pressure to bear on any nation that seeks to try American citizens for crimes against international law.
Look at the world as it really is Mr Lewis and accept that Australia has the right and I would argue the duty to pursue a different path.

Despite being a small nation, Australia is and always has been imperial in its outlook - every bit as much as Britain and the US. We support these empire nations, not so much for dubious protection against some invader from somewhere, but because we are more comfortable in the company of imperial nations.

Australia began as an imperial colony and expanded its control of the continent through imperial plunder, land grants for 'worthy' imperial players, convict slavery, and a sustained policy of indigenous genocide. Except for a brief foray into social liberalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - mainly because the institutions that usually entrench a nation's inequalities were still in their infancy and thus easier to challenge - Australia has settled into a firmly entrenched imperial mindset that validates foreign aggression abroard and domestic rule for the rich at home.

No matter how much our imperial alliances and adventures - both economic and military - are exposed as dangerous, expensive and unutterably stupid, and no matter how much public opinion comdemns the path we are on, there is very little hope of Australia ever doing things differently. Those who support the status quo have plenty of established institutions and media outlets to support a well paid career path, while those who challenge it must make do with volunteering their precious time to raise awareness in a national debate that thoroughly excludes them.

Killarney said

"Those who support the status quo have plenty of established institutions and media outlets to support a well paid career path, while those who challenge it must make do with volunteering their precious time to raise awareness in a national debate that thoroughly excludes them".

First, i have no self-interest to support the staus quo. I am a stuggling academic who probably has minimal chance of getting a research job beyond again being a research assistant. I suspect this is because i speak my mind on a range of matters rather than building supposed expertise in one segment of the humanities. One academic opinion page publication also rejected an article because they did not want such an agressivetone towards China. Fortunately OLO, which i belive is better than our nesspaper sector, published the piece no questions asked.

Second, and this seems lost on critics of this article, I dont support the US because it is a great role model, although I do recognise that it alone has played a major security role for Western societies alone. When my best mates laughed at the attacks on New York in 2011 i went off my head and pointed out that this supposed flawed capitalist system run by the evil US also supportd his booming house prices given he was born in such a lucky time when mindless crdedit reliance ruled.

Third, i support the US because it is the leader of the Western world and i am worried that its decline, given that Europe is proving incapable of stepping up, will erode humanity's capacity to further promote democracy, pluralism, and so on.

Yes, US companies in Australia also have put pressure on its workers as my brother has told me, and the US has a lot of weird strategies with consequnces for a whole lot of people around the world, but i suspect things will get a whole lot harder for ordinary Aust's if say China's authoritarian state ever had the same influence.

I think recent current affairs speaks for itself. Some matters are more back and white.