You tapped upon a real truth:

But of course, if they're THE ENEMY as well then there's a few too many to kill don't you think?

Precisely. That's why we pretend the west is still a big happy family. If we treat them like dirt it only exacerbates our problems. Many of the people in Europe are indoctrinated by a heavy wave of anti-US propaganda sponsored by their corporations. That's why we are engaged with folks like the Rumanians or other former oppressed folks who like the idea of freedom and want to score points with a rich 'superpower'. We nurture India and other nations that are new players in the big foreign policy games.

We don't want to kill anyone. The whole US gig is 'freedom' for all or at least a facsimile of it. Sure we have a lot of self-interest involved in our foreign policy. We've used Israel as a buffer, we've used Iraq to counter Iran after the Ayatollah was helped into power and the shah was brought down. We've dealt with folks who are generally the lesser of evils. We deal with China because if we don't -others will and we will have even less influence on their human rights practices.

Some nations' foreign policy makes no distinction between good and evil. And that's why the US is the pariah it is right now among certain nations - we're not good for their business.

George Bush has more of a white hat on that the left has been led to believe and those foreigners lambasting him and US foreign policy have a black hat on when one bothers to take a closer look.