Americans don't want an empire

You can say that again, Father.

We are willing to help people find peace and life with dignity, but we don't want an American Empire, where we tell others what to with guns aimed at them.

Americans don't want an empire:

"The United States of America is a paper tiger. It reverses the dictum of Theodore Roosevelt. It speaks loudly and carries a small stick. Americans are told by their leaders that their country is the last superpower in the world, that we have the duty to bring democracy to the rest of the world, that we have the might and the right, the power and the virtue, to impose by ourself our will on the planet.

This is rubbish, not to use a more scatological word. The United States is not much good as an imperial power because it lacks two of the qualities essential for effective imperialism: a population that is ready to absorb serious casualties in the cause of the empire and leadership that is sufficiently cynical to abandon moralism when there is a chance to deal.

It will do no good to lecture the American people on their obligation to endure substantial loss of life in a cause that the leadership thinks is a national duty. Americans will rise up in righteous anger if they have been attacked and destroy the foe, make no mistake about that -- as the Japanese did in 1941. But they quickly become impatient with the endless, small wars, in which young Americans die without any clear purpose and without any 'light at the end of the tunnel.'"