Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the victors have cast their achievement primarily as the triumph of freedom and taken to spreading free markets and free politics as the key to universal progress. They have forgotten that justice and equality were equally important concerns for many and that what was discredited was less communism's communitarian ideals than its ability to live up to them. The emergence of a world system dominated by the United States, meanwhile, has raised people's expectations that Washington could correct economic and political injustices if it really wanted to and has ensured that they are angry with it when problems persist, even if actual responsibility rests closer to home.

If the United States fails to train itself on alleviating injustice as much as on expanding freedom, the political-economic order of free-market individualism it promotes will be discredited and U.S. influence will wane.

[Emphasis added]

-- George Perkovich in Giving Justice Its Due, Foreign Affairs Vol 84, Number 4.

Damn straight. Its a great article but sadly the full text is not available freely online - because it goes to discuss the importance of justice rhetoric's in the agenda of terorrists. Its one of the more balanced critiques I have read of the terrorist agenda and its interrelationship with the globalisation of the American market economy. For many, it won't be pretty reading because it confronts some ugly truths - but those ugly truths need to be addressed. You can't win a war if you are unwilling to engage the enemy - and, personally, I think for all their warmongering, the West has largely failed to engage the terrorists. The 'war on terror' isn't a conventional war - its a moral war. To quote verbatim from John Robb: "Victory in 4GW warfare is won in the moral sphere. The aim of 4GW is to destroy the moral bonds that allows the organic whole to exist -- cohesion."