In America itself, there are many who eschew this self-image. Like Western Europeans, the American Left does not use goodness rhetoric; it prefers the language of "fairness," "rights" and "equality" to the language of morality. Thus, the Left divides the world into rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots, the strong and the weak, the white and the non-white, not good and evil. The Left dismisses that division as "simplistic," "being judgmental," and seeing a gray world in black and white. Some on the American Right, too -- as exemplified by Pat Buchanan and his supporters -- also reject a moral mission for America. They divide the world between Americans and non-Americans, not between good and evil.
This preoccupation with good and evil is a primary reason America is hated. If people demonstrating against the American-led war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq cared about peace or about good and evil, they would have been rioting against China, against Sudan, against North Korea, against Iran's mullahs, and against Saddam. But America, precisely because it is good, and precisely because it fights evil, shames all these people. And you never hate anyone as much as he who forces you to stare at evil and at your acceptance of it.
Because America talks about good and evil and does something about it, those nations and individuals, including many Americans, that have other priorities resent this America, and some even wish it "a million Mogadishus."
Rhetoric matters. May we long believe that we are a good people and strive to prove it.