Regarding the abuses of power and the need to structure their containment

It would be good if the authors of The Liberal Uses of Power in the March 2005 issue of The American Prospect attended more to liberal principles regarding the abuses of power and the need to structure containment of such abuse. I had thought that the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War debacle, and the women’s movement, to name just a few of the major political/cultural experiences of the last half century, had taught liberals about the dangers of unchecked power and reminded them of the need to restrain and hold the use of power to high(er) standards of principle.

The authors admire "realism" in foreign policy while they envision Americans living up to "our highest ideals." Yet this expectation seems highly unrealistic, even absurd, in light of the liberal use of torture by Americans and the killing (so far) of tens of thousands of non-combatant Arabs by the U.S. military in the several wars following 9/11 (many times the number of non-combatant Americans that Muslim jihadists have killed.) If the authors do not understand this from where they sit in the United States, they should know that most of the people across the globe who share their general value-orientation see the contradiction very clearly.

And do the authors really believe that liberal ideals are achieved through the crucible of such warfare?

When force must be used, liberals must be very precise in limiting its scope. Liberals must eschew aggression and aggrandizement, recognizing that state-organized violence always exacts an enormous price from liberal ends.

The capitulation to "what realism demands in the short run" is too broad a stroke and approaches capitulation to the conservative agenda. Liberals should ask themselves what "realism demands" regarding the "forgotten agenda of protecting the global environment and alleviating poverty" (If you don’t know, ask any Republican politician and they will tell you.)

If liberals join conservatives in backing, "as realism demands," more American wars they may as well join conservatives in forgetting that other agenda for another generation or two.