Attitude.

Editor,

To a man carrying a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Something like that.

If the US were not a warlike empire invested almost to the exclusion of everything else in weaponry and war, the US would employ other approaches to its foreign affairs.

Even suggesting this immediately raises an American's hackles about how violent the world has always been and how important it is to be mighty, strong, and support the troops, the troops the troops.

There comes a point at which the frame through which a society that views human conflict in violent terms transforms the nature of conflict into something that can only be addressed with violence.

We make the world we live in with our attitude. Countries do this, too.

Re: "U.S.-Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell Into Jihadis’ Hands" (12/6/2012)