"Today's war-perpetuating behavior from Mike O'Hanlon, Joe Lieberman, John McCain and David Ignatius is an excellent guide for what has happened over the last six years."

Greenwald would do well to remember the one act of 'war perpetuating behavior' he fails to register. Bush was re-elected over the jelly-spined Kerry. I have no doubt and neither should anyone else that, if Kerry were elected, heavy draw downs would have begun already and we'd be well on the way to what Greenwald so desires; complete and unfettered defeat.

The bottom line is the American people don't get to choose via 'opinion polls'or - they get to choose via elections, every 4 years. They re-elected George Bush as commander in chief, and they did not elect Democrats in sufficient numbers to force instant defeat upon us.

They may choose to do that next year - the choice will be pretty clear-cut, whoever the candidates end up being. They will forced to stick with choice for 4 years as well. That's how it works.

"Our vaunted super-tech military is currently failing in Iraq and Afghanistan to people armed with ak47's, simple bombs, and guts."

:)

You're a year behind the news dude.

Get with it.

I'm not saying mission accomplished; far from it.

But a year ago your sort were telling us the surge wouldn't work.

The surge has suceeded in its objective of reducing violence, and indeed of turning many of the local Sunni populations against Al Queda. As a counterinsurgency strategy it has been successful.

It has not thus far suceeded in helping to move on the politcal process significantly, and there are many reasons for this, most of them too complex for the BDS numbskulls on this blog to get their heads around. But the United State military is not 'losing to men with AK47s and guts' - this is piffle from the mind from a simpleton.

As you say, you consider the war lost already (which you consider a victory for you), so really it doesn't matter to you what happens in Iraq; it's a zero sum game. Some of us want to see a decent outcome there.

To put it mildly, I don't see much dissent on Greenwald's comments page.

However, if you disagree with his characterisation of the force that contains 1.4 million of your countrymen and women as mindless random killers, then feel free to say so.

If not, I'll stick with my broad brush characterisation of the readers of this blog.

"On the substantive issue of "we are at war," well that's easily remedied."

No it isn't. There are people in the world who are war with us. Talk about intellectual vacuity. As Trotsky said; you might not be interested war, but war is interested in you. We weren't occupying Afghanistan on Iraq on September 11th 2001.

Four percent of GDP is tiny in historical terms; it represents among the lowest level of military spending since World War II and America's birth as a superpower.

I'm noticing that a sense of history is also not a strong facet among commenters on this blog. Figures. Oh well. At least I'm here to call y'all out on it.

A declaration of war is a surprisingly rare thing. Very few of the conflicts fought since 1945 have had formal declarations of war attached to them.

Osama Bin Laden came close however in 1998, in his appeal to kill Americans (who he deemed 'the far enemy') where ever they could be found.

That doesn't amount to the same kind of threat as say, a declaration of war from the Soviet Union might have. But it does amount to far more of an intractable problem than a declaration of war by Sudan or some other small state might.

We are at war therefore, but not with a nation state; with an idea, a viral ideology.

You're wrong. We do not absolve soldier's of responsiblity on the basis of 'orders' - perhaps you missed the Nuremberg trials?

If you truly belief US soliders are being ordered to randomly shoot civilians, and carrying out those orders willingly, you have:

a) a demented view of your government and countrymen

b) very likely a mental disorder of some variety

"The moral question is what do we give up for spending that money."

That's a good question, but there are many such questions; what do I give up when my taxes go to pay somebody elses medical care for example, or paying someone else's pensions? Like it or not, this will not be an election where the foundations of US society are rebuilt along the lines you'd like to see, so as interesting as that moral question is, I don't see that it gets us anway. Democrat or Republican, military spending will remain at levels that are, I suspect, wholly unaccetpable to you. Too bad.

"Tell me: what are the Army divisions stationed in Europe doing in the "war on terror"? What did our military presence on Okinawa do on 9/11? If Europe and Japan can send military personnel to the gulf; they can defend their own borders."

Err..the deployments you are talking about predate the war on terror. I'll do you the favour of assuming you know that.

As regards divisions in Europe, the sad fact is that Europe outsourced its defence to the US for fifty years and hasn't been keen to pick it up again since then (their peacemeal deployments to the gulf and elsewhere not withstanding). Coincidentally, many of thse places now have local economies that depend on US bases and are not keen for the Yanks to go home anytime soon.

Forces in Asia of course have another purpose of helping to maintian the balance of forces the region against China in case of aggression against the ROC.