Oh how foolish of me Paul.L. If only I'd realised that Suskind was LEFT-WING. Of course, that immediately invalidates anything he has to say. Clearly his Pulitzer Prize was awarded by mistake (or perhaps the Pulitzer is one of those rewards for compliant members of the "soft left").

Rumsfeld made a "mess" of the war in Iraq? The US military thought 500,000 troops were needed in Iraq, whereas Rumsfeld thought this figure was a "product of old thinking and the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the military." Looks like Rumsfeld didn't much like the "reality-based community" either?

Dear oh dear oh dearie me! What a mess the Liberal Party is in!

I have been a Liberal voter for a few elections, but this article is depressing - not because the good Senator is wrong, but because he mouths nothing more than general platitudes about change. Yes, Senator, the world is changing! It has always done so, and it will always continue to do so! My platitude versus your platitude.

What Liberal thinking needs however are policies. How are we to to confront the Wahabbism and Salufism emanating from the oil-rich fiefdoms? (Iran, Saudi Arabia) How do we trade-off Australia's interest in wealth with our interest in liberty as China and India take their demographically rightful place in the world? (Tibet, Olympics) How do we maintain a social security net in our own economies in a globalised world where our unskilled compete against the unskilled from the states with excess labour and no social security system? (Underclass) How do we get our citizenry to accept a modicusm of responsibility commensurate with its almost unlimited demand for rights? (Civics)

We need more than platitudes, Senator. We need visionary policies.

A Symeonakis, it is interesting what you say about European political intellect, even though they did spawn Nazism.

I happened to be with a broken up heavy artillery command group of specialists waiting for discharge in late 1945.

While waiting we figured out whether we wished for the Americans running the world after WW2?

It was so surprising that so many of us favoured a future Pax Europa rather than what is now Pax Americana.

The main reason seemed to be that the US had to be forced into WW2 by the Japs, some wondering whether without the Jap intrusion how long us British and our allies would have been left to fight the Germans?

Of course, as Aussie Brits we did expect Britain to have a very strong role after Germany was knocked out, if it ever came without America becoming fully involved.

It is also so interesting that despite America playing top dog role in the finish, there seemed to be the feeling among us, that the Yanks as we called them, still had a lot to learn?

Maybe that is why many political philosophers would still prefer a Kantian Federation of Democratic Nations to run the world rather than one militarily all-powerful Pax Americana.

Liberalism is a complex word. Its meaning is tied in with the concept of a human being. As such, why call it just Western?

Regarding the causes of conflicts, it would appear that they originate in ethnic or religious differences.

Let us start thinking differently. What people really care about is when economic disadvantage is institutionalised within a system. As ex-president Clinton famously remarked, "it is the economy, stupid".

Istvan,

Of course there are many types of liberalism, but western society in general has been guided by principles that are accurately defined as "western liberalism". There is no intent to claim liberalism as a western only notion.

Since the age of enlightenment the west has traveled down a road which has been defined by liberal ideas. That is the western experience and hence the term "western liberalism".

PaulL.,

Let us not delude ourselves. If anything, Liberalism is a quest. We have gleaned a lot from every other cultures, and we certainly made lot of mistakes along the way. One of the strengths or characteristics of our culture is the ability to analyse and to synthesise knowledge. Without abandoning any of this process, it is important that we try to update our understanding of events, and not just think that what we already know, or our stance, is definitive.