>> ... can no longer provide moral guidance to the rest of  the world 
>> ...

>> OK.  Fair enough, I suppose.  But then, I got to wondering -- so, 
>> then,
>> who is?  England?  Surely not --  they also have  the Iraq stain.

I don't consider the "Iraq stain" is of such major consequence 
compared to all else that happens in the world that it would 
disqualify the US. No country is perfect. While the US's actions in 
Iraq would be seen by the vast majority of humanity as having fallen 
short of the ideal, those who see the US as irrevocably stained by 
Iraq tend tend to have very selective vision re the US's good points.

In recent decades Yugoslavia stage 1 (dissolution), Yugoslavia stage 2 
(Kosovo), Cambodia, China, Ruwanda, China, various ex Soviet 
republics, China and many more come to mind as fit examples when 
seeking to make moral comparisons. The fact that China tends to do 
things overtly mainly within its borders with the exception of one 
small neighbour doesn't make things any better. (I'm not referring to 
Taiwan - that's an internal dispute that will probably sort itself 
peacefully in the next 50 years or so).

>> China?  No.

Indeed.

>> Russia?  No.

Not yet.

>> No. Germany?  Of course not.

A far better candidate than many.
The sins of the past still weigh heavily on their national conscience 
* and they are quite possibly in a far better position to provide 
moral guidance than most.  (* As well as that being my perception from 
"at a disatnce" input, it's also strongly reinforced with examples 
given to me by a family member who lived there for a while). Anyone 
who did anything they can reasonably be held morally accountable for 
in Hitler's Germany is now over 70 years old (ie at least 12 years old 
in 1945) and most still alive with any moral responsibility are far 
older than that. The current German nation nowadays has no moral 
responsibility for the wrongs of that era.

>> France? Well, perhaps . . .

Hopefully that's in jest. If I ignored the fact that I'm a resident of 
the South Pacific and that I live about 7 miles from where terrorists 
(literally) sent by the French president sank the Rainbow Warrior, 
then I'd rate them at very best as no better than their peers.

>> except that once one begins to examine the skeletons in
>> their closet from the Algerian revolution it seems awfully hard.

To balance some of that, and regardless of possible vested interest 
etc, whe people were dying in their literally hundreds of thousand in 
Ruwanda *ONLY* the French got into action and did something while the 
whole of the rest of the world di nothing for weeks w\and weeks and 
weeks. That did a lot to redress old memories.

>> Japan?  No, they got carried away during WW II.

And they have learned much from it. Albeit not enough yet.

>> Switzerland?  No, too
>> many shady deals made with Nazi Germany.

Alas, the dealings of the Swiss is one of the great sorrows - those 
who looked so 'squeaky clean' and indeed had the opportunities to be 
the white knoghts that they appeared to be, turned out to have 
conspired at murder and theft on a scale beyond reasonable belief. But 
also, that generation is gone.

So, how does Belgium stand as a candidate? I have warm mental fizzies 
for their heroism as a nation at various times past. Including 1914 
and 1939. And as the batleground of Western Europe where the 'great 
powers' came to play, they have much to think about. Visit Ypres/Ieper 
on ANY day at 8pm.
Go to the Mennen gate.

        http://public.fotki.com/russellmc/atw/atw_ypres_mennengate/ 
*

Watch the ceremony (conducted there at 8pm every day since 1929). Cry, 
perhaps, as I did.  I don't know how they would stand up against 
iceland in a point by point comparison. But I think the Vikings still 
have a lot to answer for :-)



        RM

* There will be a lot more of our 25 country tour photo on the superb 
Fotki site in due course. For now it's mainly other stuff.
Click thumbnails for larger view. Click larger view for next photo. 
Under each of these is a ""Get original uploaded photo" link. These 
are typically 500kB - 1MB so choose with care.


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