Except an awful lot of these "boys and girls" are just hired guns of outfits like Blackwater Security Consulting, who are interesting in netting $1000/day not making Iraq "a showplace of democracy."
>(2) Ordinary Amur'cans, unlike folks like us (or at least me, to speak for
>myself), have a rather intense emotional identification with the nation. So
>they have an intense need to constantly prove that they are members in good
>standing of the group which they rely on to protect them. And remember,
>this protection is not just a matter of simple physical security, it is all
>emotional -- your country protects you from whatever symbolic spooky evil
>entities might be running around in the universe (which of course are
>really things in people's heads).
Such poor babies, ordinary Amur'cans. Foreign policy isn't supposed to be a feel-good exercise, an arena where people simply indulge tribalistic delusions about the world. So long as the American public remains mired in illusion about the world, the nation will be bogged down in endless military conflicts with endless streams of body bags returning home. I don't think you can wake up this nation by whispering lullabies in its ear and continuing to indulge its fantasies that foreigners -- not the insane crew running the US government -- threaten the safety of the US public.
Carl
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