1. What do you mean by
done often? An object of possession is in general a
permanent
object of possesion. Anyway, here it looks permanent to me. I do not
see any difference being introduced by the quotation marks, except to
underline/quote the
exact terms utilized in the discussion.
2. No, "a failure" is required. "Failure" would be bad English.
3. The sentence is deficient in one respect: consistency. It jumps from Americans' to foreigners'.
This is inconsistency and bad generalization. What the Americans' do
can't be related by necessity to what all the foreigners do.