There is an unknown holdover from the days of the Cold War that American officials still use to the detriment of American foreign policy, and you've never heard about it until now.

It's called "Strategic Morality."

It once may have made some sense, even though it often didn't work back in the days of the Cold War either. It's simple. Faced with the threat of the former Soviet Union and its aggressive or attempted domination of Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, the United States lined up allies against the Communist Bloc.

We did this even if some of our friends were ruthless dictatorships.

This was also called "collective security." Our friends were formed into groups with titles, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, consisting of European countries, or SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. One of the members of SEATO was the Philippines, which during the 1960s was a dictatorship run by Ferdinand Marcos that brutalized, imprisoned and murdered political opponents.

The Marcos regime even beat up the Beatles during their concert tour there.

It didn't matter. If some of our friends were unsavory, it was safety in numbers that was important. In other words, we weren't too particular back in those days if you were dishonest or murderous to your own people as long as you were friendly to us and hostile to them (Russians).

Though the Cold War ended and today's war on terrorism requires more imaginative responses, which we are not getting, we're still using "Strategic Morality." In other words, doing not what's right or what's moral, but doing what we do because it's supposedly in America's best strategic interest to do so, or so we perceive.

There are too many numerous examples to cite all of them.

In the Middle East, the powder keg of the world, the U.S. is not seen as a peace broker, a neutral party interested in peace, but as a sponsor and mentor of Israel, with Israel as our attack dog. That's how much of the Arab world views us.

Very few people including myself have disputed Israel's right to exist or the importance of Israel as an America ally or the need to defend Israel. Few would also dispute that in the Arab World there are extremists and fanatics. But when Israel pushes out Palestinians from their centuries-old homeland and aggressively builds settlements and the U.S. turns a blind eye.

Backing the Shah of Iran and ignoring dissidents in that country in 1979 was also a disastrous misread of the situation and an example of Strategic Morality. So was last year's uprising in Egypt in which the government of the U.S. tried to ignore popular unrest among the people and continued to back as long as it could the repressive regime of Hosni Mubarak.

We thought we were doing right, or did we?

These are examples of the concept of Strategic Morality. America is not acting as a neutral peace broker, but by our actions contributes to tensions and violence in the Middle Ea

I have a suspicion our government is too rooted in the past.

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Another example was our former relationship with Saddam Hussein. We befriended him, guaranteed him in his war with Iran that we would not let him lose, supplied and equipped him. Anyone who doubts can look at the famous picture of former Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Saddam's palace shaking Saddam's hand.

It was only after Saddam proved not to be an obedient puppet that we had a falling out. This dubious friendship encouraged Saddam into the deadly misconception that we would let him conquer Kuwait and look the other way. That was an example of Strategic Morality that went sour.

We still continue to befriend thugs if it's thought to be in our own best interest.

Instead of Strategic Morality, lining up thugs as friends to counter other thugs, I have consistently advocated creating a multi-national police-type force through the United Nations that would deal with terrorism as a criminal matter rather than simply the old-fashioned occupation of military ground like we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. This multi-national force would be a combination similar to Interpol, a collaborative police-type approach based in Europe, with even possibly some attributes of the fictional Federation from the old Sci Fi TV Show Star Trek.

It could shift the battle against terrorism from the current nationalistic exercise of overwhelming military power against small impoverished countries, thereby inflaming their populations, to a more domestically and criminal investigatory multi-national response.

It would be more workable and cost-effective.

Unfortunately, so far our leaders, or misleaders, cling to antiquated notions of military occupation of ground for endless periods of time at a cost in trillions and lives lost in the hopes something will come of it. I have a suspicion our government is too rooted in the past and the memories of the Cold War to come up with ideas more imaginative than simple Cold War-style military responses when it comes to the challenge of terrorism.

Let's end Strategic Morality.

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