>>9 I agree though with
>>8 and
>>6. It bothers me the way US thinks it must be involved in everything (that will benefit it, of course).
But that's what governments do. In our current, globalized world, governments have interests that are not always right in their backyard, so to speak. A nation's government pursues those interests because they are seen to provide benefits to that nation, and possibly also its allies. These benefits could be anything from supplies like oil to a less hostile government being in control of a country. They essentially have a list of interests, with the most important at the top. In this particular case, if a specific end result of this current turmoil in Egypt would be more beneficial to the U.S. (e.g., a government that would be more willing to work with the U.S. and its allies as opposed to one that would be vehemently, stubbornly anti-U.S.), and if it's high enough up on the list, then the U.S. government would likely try to intervene in such a way that is at least adequate to bring about their desired result.
The reason the items on the list are prioritized in the first place is because resources are finite. The U.S., despite all the barking that we sometimes hear, is incapable of being the global police because it doesn't have enough resources. That's where diplomacy comes in, trying to achieve a favorable result through political give and take. The reason that it seems like the U.S. is always the one throwing its military and diplomatic weight around to get what it wants is because it IS the one doing those things. It has those advantages and it tries to use them to get what it needs or wants for itself. It's not always fair, and it's not always what seems best from a moralistic or idealistic standpoint. Whether or not we like it, that is the current reality.
I really do wish that the whole of humanity was less selfish and more altruistic and understanding of difference, but that's currently not the case. Hence, most people tend to look after themselves first when it really comes down to it. The effect is even stronger if it's something like a government looking after millions of citizens as well as its own prosperity.
The thing I've realized about being idealistic is that, if you want to improve something, you can't deny what the thing is currently like, regardless of how much you may dislike it, disagree with it, think it's wrong, etc. That kind of naive idealism won't get you very far towards reaching your goals. Using practical idealism, or realistic idealism, if you understand and acknowledge the current, less-than-ideal reality, you're more able to see how you can implement your ideals in a way that others can accept, and how to make that implementation more likely to endure so you can build off of it.
A metaphor I came up with is a train. Say there's a train. Let's call it the reality train. It has 100 cars. Let's call the train you want the ideal train. It also has 100 cars. If you run the ideal train headlong against the reality train, you'll get nowhere. However, if you run the ideal train alongside the reality train, switching out reality cars for ideal cars one at a time (implementing idealistic ideas into the current system bit by bit), the reality train will gradually come to look more and more like the ideal train. It may never fully become the ideal train, but because you were able to switch, say, 70 of the 100 cars out of the reality train and replace them with 70 ideal cars in such a way that those ideal cars weren't replaced again with reality cars, you've made considerable, LASTING progress toward an ideal world that you can continue to build on.
