Journalists often refer to the Bush administration’s foreign policy as “unilateral” and “preemptive.” Liberal pundits like to complain that a “go-it-alone” approach has isolated the United States from former allies. But the standard American media lexicon has steered clear of a word that would be an apt description of the Bush world view.
Paranoid.
Early symptoms met with tremendous media applause in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Skepticism from reporters and dissent from pundits were sparse while President Bush quickly declared that governments were either on the side of the USA or “the terrorists.” Since then, the paranoiac scope of the administration’s articulated outlook has broadened while media acceptance has normalized it — to the point that a remarkable new document from the Pentagon is raising few media eyebrows.
Released on March 18 with a definitive title — “The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America” — the document spells out how the Bush administration sees the world…
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