Somehow we got this thing wrong. When I was studying history, the British controlled one-quarter of the world’s land mass and its people, making them rich and powerful. Less than a century later, the U.S. is fighting in the Middle East with troops all over Europe and Asia in occupations that are draining trillions from our economy.
How did we get into such a dyslexic version of empire and how long can we sustain it? And why are we doing it?
The questions arise as we take another expensive step into a Libyan quagmire with the use of Predator drones even as John McCain, the Senator from Endless War, urges, “All we need to do is get sufficient air power in there to really nail Qaddafi’s forces, and we can succeed.”
As we inch toward more war in Libya, the one we “won” in Iraq is still weighing us down as the Baghdad government clutches at us to keep troops there, even as “fragile” progress in Afghanistan threatens that scheduled drawdown this summer.
In the face of all this pressure, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is worrying out loud about the President’s goal of cutting $400 billion from national security spending over 12 years:
MORE.