The brown peoples of the world can be the good guys except when they're the bad guys (like illegal immigrants or Iranians or Iraqis or Afghanis or Somalians) . . .

Our rich white guys (Bush regime and the neoconservative members of the legislative branch and punditocracy/stenography pool) are always and forevermore the good guys despite torture as official US policy and "not so smart bombing" of anything standing because they they have the "best of intentions" in protecting us from the constantly massing amorphous hordes of scary brown people who have nothing better to do with their time than think of ways to irritate the great Satan . . .

Nation building really means bombing the fuck out of everything in sight so international (but primarily US) "free market" contractors can bilk US citizens out of bazillions of dollars and offshore both the attendant tax obligations and work (for pennies on the dollar through the indentured servitude of other brown peoples picked from economically depressed places around the globe) . . .

Fred Hiatt is a moron, propogandist shill, and all around warmongering butthead who gets paid to pen his preposterous pap . . .

We aren't really going broke at breakneck speed . . .

Hundreds of thousands of dead people (Americans or the otherwise undifferentiated "browns"), so long as they aren't rich dead people (especially not white rich people), is a morally acceptable price to pay . . .

We really are winning in Iraq and Afghanistan so our foreign policy template is sound and should be followed into perpetuity because there's always some brown people somewhere in need of civilizing (assuming they have something of value on, under, or above their lands) . . .

Congress has the sole authority to declare and promulgate war upon other sovereign nations but has no authority to rein in war so long as it is labeled with a nice euphemism like "police action" or "nation building" . . .

Americas leaders are not completely off the rails morally and economically and totally out of touch with reality because . . .

I'm so confused . . . At least I got my $300 kicker to prop up an imploding economy . . . and just think over time I'll pay it back to the Chinese people with interest . . . these guys really are geniuses or snakeoil salesman . . . I can never keep it straight. Oh well at least I could win big on the Kentucky Derby today.

Maybe America and apathetic Americans would make sense to me if I took LSD otherwise I'm at a complete loss. Viva Amerika and its exceptionally exceptional people and policies. I'd say I wish I had been born Swedish except for the big downside of having to eat Swedish food (if you can call it that).

this is after all America's post WWII exceptional foreign policy strategy--if you don't let us make money on your lands plundering your resources and people (or alternatively if you don't undermine those sovereigns we are seeking to undermine by whatever means possible) then you get bombed and we step in with our hand picked puppet regime of exiles.

It really is quite diabolical in its simplicity. Pull a Goebbels--tell the people they are under attack by the nefarious forces of evil (brown people of non-Christian persuasions and at one time those wily old Ruskies) and label any dissenters as unpatriotic and poof you've got mass support for mass killing anywhere on the globe.

That Americans believe in the myth of their own exceptionalism can only rightly be labeled 21st centure self-delusion. They are exceptionally gifted at overconsumption and hours of mindless television programming watched and turning an productive industrial/agricultural economy into one that creates wealth through three card monty financial market manipulation. Well it's also exceptional that they have a two-tiered legal system--one for the ultra rich and corporate entities and one for the serfs. Hayek the huckster. Friedman the willing fool. And Cheney the puppetmaster felon pulling the strings on Shrub his dyslexic marionette much to his personal amusement.

Shooter cracks me up. Three immutable truths in 242's mind:

1) it is impossible for America to have anything less than pure motives, and

2) anyone seeking to hold America to its founding Constitutional principals (and the rule of law) is a fool or a traitor, and

3) those who align themselves with the idea that 95% of all American military adventurism around the globe since WWII has been unnecessary, economy damaging (domestically/occupied sovereigns), and lacks a moral/existential justification, makes us naive librul unMerikan moonbats--because we don't share the clear-eyed "serious" opinion that war (or our police actions or global terrarist thwarting activities) is inevitable, good, and the highest endeavor our great nation can engage in because everyone knows the little "brown" peeps of the world needs them some old timey American civilizin' cuzin we is the most superior peoples on God's great green and blue earth (though it is getting significantly more arid and brown).

Shooter please name the tangible benefits "we the people" have reaped from the umpteen trillions spent on funding and using our standing military across foreign lands in the last 50 years? Start with Grenada, Nicaragua, Iraq, Viet Nam, Korea, Afghanistan or any other scrappy little country thousands of miles away that we've decided to splatter against the wall to show our cultural and economic dominance? Where's my peace dividend by the way? Does it come in the mail after my stimulus check?

Hey it's Saturday morning--aren't you late for a tee time somewhere? That must explain your willful obtuseness--weekend foursomes with other ninnys like you all engaged in cigar chomping false bravado while cheating on your scorecards. Do you have the endurance to carry your own bag or do you require a golfcart? You should organize a cross cultural (conservative v liberal) golf tournament. This is one liberal who would enjoy drinking your milkshake over a weekends worth of rounds. A little low stakes Nassau or Stableford format for a couple of C notes per round--you pick the format and the winner donates the winnings to the charity of his choice or in your case the corporate/military propoganda agent of choice.