Do you think the US should act in its best interest or act fair?

Here's another example of where bad will gets you.

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Poll: Youths Back N. Korea if Attacked


Wednesday February 22, 2006 4:16 AM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Nearly half of South Korean youths who will be old enough to vote in the country's next elections say Seoul should side with North Korea if the United States attacks the communist nation, according to a poll released Wednesday.

At the same time, 40.7 percent of the 1,000 young people surveyed said Seoul should remain neutral in the event of hostilities between Washington and Pyongyang, according to the poll by The Korea Times and Hankook Ilbo dailies. Only 11.6 percent said the South should back its longtime U.S. ally.

The poll, conducted Feb. 16-19, surveyed youths between 17 and 23 years old who will be old enough to vote in next year's presidential election. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The youths named China as South Korea's most important partner for maintaining friendly relations, at 39.5 percent, followed by the United States and North Korea at 18.4 and 18 percent, respectively.

A majority of those surveyed, 54.1 percent, said peaceful reunification was the preferred method for ending the division on the peninsula. But 35.5 percent said the status quo should be maintained if the North and South can peacefully coexist.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5638018,00.html

 

As I said it comes down to longterm vs. shortterm interests. Many people fear the idea of a multipolar world and the PNAC encapsulated that fear by outlining a strategy of creating a single polar US hegemony. To me that is very much mistaking a short goal of projecting US power (or a shortterm strategy) with the long term goal of continued security and prosperity. In a global marketplace its in the interests of all economies to work for security and stability and given limited resources its not in the longterm interests of the US to be shouldering that costs while the rest world focusses on other things. Also being the military hegemon isn't a popular position and just brings on the enmity of others as the US inserts itself into all sorts of regional conflicts. IMO its fair both to the US and to the rest of the World to have other major powers take up more of the burden of providing for global security than just relying on the US to solve their problems.