The Sorrows of War and Empire

"If you take the word of our Afghan War commander, the secretary of defense, and top officials of the Obama administration and NATO," says Tom Engelhardt, "we’re not leaving any time soon," — How to Schedule a War. Mr Englehardt says that "one thing is certain: Afghans will once again pay with their homes, farms, livelihoods, and lives, while Americans, Europeans, and Canadians will pay with lives and treasure invested in a war that couldn’t be more bizarre, a war with no end in sight."

John Nichols remembers "a true son of the wisest and best of the founding generation, [who] spoke the language of James Madison, when he argued that a republic could not maintain more than 700 military bases on foreign soil and retain its own freedom" — Chalmers Johnson and the Patriotic Struggle Against Empire. Mr. Nichols concludes with Chalmers Johnson's dire warning that "as militarism, the arrogance of power, and the euphemisms required to justify imperialism inevitably conflict with America's democratic structure of government and distort its culture and basic values, I fear that we will lose our country."