How has this affected US Policy?

Submitted by Ciaotutti (United States), Jan 2, 2007 at 16:34

While Mr. Pipes's diagnosis of some of the West's attributes may be accurate, it is not clear to me how pacifism, self-hatred and complacency have affected our government's ability to wage war against Islamism? Does Mr. Pipes believe that the current US government leadership is not able to follow a preferred path because of these sentiments within the US population? Does the current US government leadership itself share some of these same ideas and is therefore misguided in their approach?

It seems that the US government has been given a great degree of latitude to carry out whatever it has felt necessary to this point. While some policies have met dissent, it seems that they have still been implemented. This may all change given the recent election results but, foreign policy still falls in the realm of the Executive Branch. How would the US government do things differently if the US/Western population had a lesser degree of pacifism, self-hatred and complacency?

I have read one of Daniel Pipes's books and a fair number of his articles. His historical perspective and knowledge of the subject area have been extremely informative. Thank you to the forum for any feedback.

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