Devin:

I appreciate your thoughtful message.  I really do.  I know it is
tough to see things from where you are outside of the states and 
then justify it with what you know about America.

I have considered many times lately what you speak of here.  Is this
somehow the beginning of "imperialism" for America?  Well, honestly, 
I don't think so.  

You see, the two examples you cite, Afganistan & Iraq, posed possible
threats to us.  First, in the case of Afganistan, their Taliban
government was harbouring terrorists, giving them safe haven and really
weren't much more than terrorists and thugs themselves.  We gave 
them fair warning to turn over Bin Laden.  Osama is not even from there
and they could have given him over to us and that would have been
that.  However, they suffered from some delusion that they could 
defeat us in a war because they managed to do so with Russia.

Now, have we seized the assets of Afganistan?  No, if there are 
any to seize.  Have we installed an American general to run the
country?  No.  Have we sent them humanitarian aid?  Yes.  And the 
person running the country right now, was the rightful person anyway.

As for Iraq, and I know we can all go round and round on this, but
it is at very least, believed to be a threat to the US by this 
administration because of WMDs and the possibility they could be given
to terrorists to use against us.  They have found a terrorist training
site in Iraq with a fuselage of a commercial jetliner believed to 
be used for dry runs by terrorists. There have been Al Queda members
killed in skirmishes in Northern Iraq and just this morning all the 
major networks are reporting a major find of missiles tipped with a
deadly mix of chemical agents.  

This does not address all the horrific things Saddam and his troops 
have been doing to the Iraqi people for the last 25 years and what 
his troops have done to civilians and our POWs in this conflict.

And I don't think what we are doing is imposing our view of the world
on others.  Our goal is to change the regime in Iraq and then let
them vote their own new leaders in.  What group of people in the world
don't like to be free to elect their own leaders?  Only people who 
already have that right and take it for granted as far as I can see.

On the subject of voting in leaders, that leads me to my next point. If 
the Bush administration begins to act in an imperialistic manner in the
future, I will be the first to vote against him in the next election.
That's what makes this country so great.  If we don't like the guy
at the top, we just vote him out the next time around; unlike so many
other countries.  One the great parts of our constitution is our right
to bear arms.  Because so many people in this country possess 
weapons, it deters anyone in government from tyring to become a tyrant
and has the same effect on anyone thinking of invading our mainland.

Now as for your comments on God and his blessings.  In my opinion it
is the easy acceptance of so many in America of immoral lifestyles, 
dishonesty, self-adulation, abortion, etc. that really upsets God.

Maybe this does to, but its the heart of people that God cares the 
most about and it is here where so many people in America are lacking.