perfidy

Mike, your description of American empire, as it were, as driven by corporations strikes me as apt. Two associations come to mind: Emily Rosenberg's theis of US diplomacy in the Wilson era being driven and facilitated by corporate interests, and the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, whizzing through the galaxy, artificially accelerating civilizations' development in order to cultivate new markets.

In fact, I think one of the major, major, problems that other nations have with us is not that we act imperialistically, but rather that through successful marketing and plain appeal, US products and corporations transform indigenous ways of life.

This is the root of our hegemony, not our military might.

However, even though this force allows us the latitude to act that we currently enjoy, the transformations societies go through when buying US products or harboring US companies are not without severe drawbacks. These drawbacks can, of course, breed resentment. For examples, see the way Coca-Cola is damn tasty and safer than the water, but it wrecks your teeth. Or the debacle over Nestle's marketing of baby formula in Latin America, claming it was all a baby needed, nutrition-wise. Or how DOW mis-handled the Bhopal disaster horribly. Let's not forget the Nike shops in Thailand Mike mentioned, whose employees, thought they often make good money, still can't afford the Nikes they spend all day making. Good corporate policy rarely makes for good foreign policy, yet it is the main shaper of the US' activities and perceptions abroad.

Part of what Islamic terrorists rail against is the inexorability of this force, and it is part of the reason behind their attempts at judging us as "a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."