Petr, America still prospers on the back of slavery and child labour. Just look at the country of origin on anything you buy in the shops, and ask yourself why it couldn't have been made in the USA.

KimC, you ask: "Is it somehow wrong for us to try to aid the poor and destitute within our own borders..." I would have thought America's record on that front was piss poor, which is why you have to fence off the haves from the have-nots (by having a higher proportion of your population in jail than any country on earth, bar none).

But back to press manipulation. I have just heard that the US Defence department is commandeering all photographic images from the civillian-owned Ikonos satellite. But surely such images would have confirmed the surgical precision of the American war machine?