Originally Posted by GySgt

This is very well written and also very close to what we have always done. But it always looks far better on paper.

The problem is that the world sees how we have held up human rights in our country and comfortably ignore the suffering of everyone else (unless they were European of course) while we conducted business with their oppressors. They have also seen us rush to uphold the stability of established governments (no matter how vile and expired it is) for "stability's" sake. Also, it looks good on paper to suggest "good relations" with rising powers i.e., Russia and China, but to many populations this means that we "support" their oppression. Are we not blamed for every dictator's oppression that shook an American hand in the Middle East? The power in the Middle East (economically and religiously) is Saudi Arabia and that hasn't been to our benefit. And economic sanctions seems a far more pleasant deal than warfare, but as we have seen the Al-Queda sentiments in regards to the starving children in Iraq or the Iranian sentiments for their sanctions prior to 9/11, this is also a tool used to hate us.

And sharing ideas with the forces who deal in oppression and communism doesn't exactly weigh in the free world's interests. Why on earth would we want a balance?