The language America uses to describe itself ... is, oddly, at once inward-looking and imperialist. It is possible for American pundits to praise the US for taking action especially when Europe opposes it. It is at the same time very difficult even for American liberals to oppose the Reaganites' guardians-of-the-world rhetoric. It is, after all, a rhetoric developed by US liberals themselves, notably in the Kennedy era. The key to this national language is an absolute belief in the goodness of America. From this, madness springs, because now words — freedom, justice, democracy, terror — can take on whatever meanings are required to support the belief.
—Salman Rushdie, Indian-born British novelist and essayist, The Guardian, May 26, 1986