>It seems, however, that the US is becoming more and more lost in its own
>sick imagination - capable of solving only those problems it can itself
>manufacture and increasingly incapable of dealing with real ones.
Very well-put, but you are only judging by the best performing US security agency, the FBI. They might manufacture terrorist threats by pimping for impressionable youth they can turn into terrorists wannabees, but there are worse things. The likes of the CIA don't bother with all that. They just make stuff up, then maybe get someone to confess under torture, or just assassinate them without even the formality of trial by torture.
So you see that the likes of the FBI are actually quite civilised by comparison. In other words, out of step with modern anti-terrorist practice. That's the "old" America. The America lost in its sick imagination is the new America.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas