A Reflection On Power

In this issue, we deal with the question of power, a question that is almost never addressed in a serious way. What we argue within is that with power comes responsibility.

Those who make our "blue chip" list in this year's power elite list are those who have exercised the responsibility that comes with power most consistently over time. Those who make our "40 under 40" list have come to an early recognition of this same understanding and have acted upon it.

If too many among us fail to understand the delicate balance of Kansas City corporate power, we should not be surprised that so many people throughout the world fail to understand the imperatives of American geo-political power. They have never felt it. We were all born and raised on it.

When Americans see images of horror and desolation, we know that we alone, as the world's only superpower, have the final responsibility to right those images. Among ourselves we debate endlessly, and often bitterly, the extent of that responsibility, but to a person we all feel it.

It is this deeply imbued sense of responsibility--not the lust for money or land or oil--that ultimately moves us to act militarily. In this last century, we have never wanted to start a war or even send our troops abroad. All of the land that we have ever asked in return for in any of these engagements, to quote Colin Powell, is "enough to bury our dead in."

Every one of our major wars has inspired serious internal struggle before we engaged, even World War II, certainly before Pearl Harbor. And when we fail to act--as we failed to do in Rwanda or in the Iraqi uprisings of 1991 and 1994--we feel the guilt as no else does.

In the last twelve years our sense of responsibility inspired us to liberate Kuwait in 1991, to feed Somalia in 1993, to stabilize Bosnia in1995, and to protect Kosovo in 1999, all Muslim countries. If we profited from these ventures, you could certainly not tell it from my tax statements.

In return for our assistance, as a direct response to our "arrogance" for daring to assist, Islamic terrorists murdered 3,000 of our fellow citizens, almost all of them civilians, all of them innocent. We watched this event in horror, as much of the world did too. But the world cannot imagine how deeply wounded we were by the attack itself and how deeply betrayed we felt when much of the world greeted the attack with cheers.

And now the game has changed. Yes, we want to liberate the oppressed Iraqis. The urge to liberate is part of our national character. Yes, we want to protect Israel. That country's safety represents one of our deepest responsibilities. But ultimately, we want to protect ourselves. We want to deny terrorists access to the kind of weapons that could make us forget what day September 11 even happened on.

And finally, we want to remind the world that you don't tug on superman's cape.

In times of national crisis, we preserve our power only by supporting those who wield it constitutionally. We know that in this, the era of self-esteem, everyone is an armchair general. We just ask that you not expect others to take your generalship too seriously.

Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
jsweeney@ingramsonline.com