So, now being a citizen of a "first world" country is racist? That seems to be the contention of this article - that immigration laws are the new apartheid? Amazing how this just happens to coincide with the immigration "rights" protests in the USA!

As long as we are at it - why not eliminate intellectual property rights? - I mean, the idea that people in "the third world" should actually respect and pay for intellectual property (patents, entertainment) is also a real burden that should also be eliminated. I mean - why should someone in Cancun, Mexico pay attention to things invented in Tucson, Arizona?

Well, there can be an equally valid argument made that local cultures might be responsible for some of the economic misery that bedevils most of the world’s population. So, the idea of resisting some cultural baggage might be perhaps a bit valid. (Note the word “some” - that does mean not all of them) You really want the levels of corruption found in Africa or Central America brought to your town? I don't think that is racist. Perhaps many of the people that leave those places are running away for their own benefit.

This is not just a "first world" problem too - look at the economic disparity between the rural and urban worlds in China and India. You need a permit to move in at least one of those places - is that "apartheid" too?

How about the reverse argument? - That many the places cited need to bring a little more of the cultures that are successful into their sphere to globalize the labor AND rules that make it work. Try that first - and see if the disparity between salaries shrinks

This whole article is so stunningly absurd that it makes one almost laugh out loud - but I do concede that there are some points of truth in the article (LeMay was nuts- and we were lucky to have someone as ball less as Gorbachev running the Soviet union as it collapsed) - but very few. It would take too long to refute each one - so I will just move to the point that I think is missed, because it is implicitly stated at the first of the article.

The Pentagon has "lost it's way" because the whole thrust of the last 50 years has been to establish an invincible war machine - one that can fight and win battles quickly - but cannot win a war. James Carrol faults Churchill and Roosevelt for declaring a war for "unconditional surrender" because they had the clarity to understand that the ideology that they were fighting needed to be eliminated - not contained. WWII was terrible - a slaughterhouse - but it DID achieve the destruction of the Nazi & Japanese Imperialistic doctrines as a viable political alternative. And the reason that it did that was not by "reasoning" but beating the other side down to the point that they realized that it was either change or die. You may not agree with that level - but would you argue that Germany and Japan today would be remotely similar to the pacifist states they are if WWII had not been so brutal?

The doctrine of war used to be to impose your will on the other side so they changed. The Pentagon today is "smart war" and "shock and awe" to smash down the armies of whoever is on the receiving end - Iraq, Serbia, etc. What you get is the utter defeat of the armies of your adversary - but not a whit of a change in the attitude of the people. In reality, you just set yourself up for another round at a later date. That is the failure - the mechanism of war has been cleaned up to the point where it produces "results" but not impact.

Now - I am NOT advocating nuclear bombing anyone out of existence here, nor I am an advocate of the rape and pillage school of unbridled warfare. But I am saying that the doctrine of war the Pentagon has been hijacked - to produce a never ending series of "victories" in battle - but never a win with some finality. That is the victory of the “military industrial complex” – a system that produces a military that can never truly win anything.