Glenn, the counter to your point has to do with the ratio between an ability to wage war and an actual choice to do so.

Granting all your points about Rice's hypocrisy (and she is disgraceful as always), but the truth is that America could wage far more wars than we do, due to our military power.

Relatively speaking, we're probably the most restrained superpower in world history. Given that every historical empire was built on needing a state of perpetual war, from Rome through Mongol China through almost a Millennium of Britain's armies, through Tzarist and then Soviet Russia, and of course the two German war machines.

I'm not defending the last decade of American warmongering, only that placing it into historical context as well as drawing a parallel between what we could do and what we actually do, might make the case that we're actually fairly benign.

Which doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't endeavor to do far better.

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Restrained?? Can you find a military expert -- anywhere - who would contest the fact that we've basically extended ourselves so thin with our military action that our military is at the breaking point? It would be all but physically impossible for us to fight any more wars -- at least ground wars. If this is restraint, what would a lack of restraint, in your mind, look like?

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You have to think outside of the boundaries of American tradition but in keeping with historical global empires to answer this question.

A lack of restraint would be outright genocide. Cambodian killing fields. Holocausts. Massacring millions.

Obviously we live in a country with a far higher standard. I'm just making two key distinctions that you're leaving out:

1. The ratio between the capacity to inflict destruction and the actual choice to do so is far and away the lowest in our empire as in any global empire in world history (granted a very low bar to begin with)

2. All empires are founded on warfare as the driving nexus point of human rallying behind the Nation State. This even goes for the Catholic Church, which used Crusade language and the demonization of Jews and Muslims to maintain power for 800 years (leading to untold horrors and slaughters)

My point is we can't just discuss America's failures in isolation. We must consider the ugly fact of human nature and how the masses are rallied in lands of great power -- it is almost always by war.

Popes used it. Communists used it. National Socialists used it. And our supposed "democracy" uses it.

To act outraged that politicians constantly cry for war to prove their bonafides is like acting outraged that teenagers make out at parties -- you're denying a fundamental nature of the human condition.

We must work to temper this base impulse through checks and balances -- through a healthy critical media and a viable two-party system, neither of which we have right now (and why Glenn, your work is so vital).

But to act like America isn't living up to some hypothetical standard is to betray serious historical ignorance.

If we bomb Iran tomorrow, we're still less war-like than every empire in global history.

Again, not to say we should. Nor that the blunder of Iraq was justified. Only that it's still historically below the warmongering of most empires.

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Conversely, there are other countries in the world with plenty of ability to fight -- China and Russia, in particular. China has a huge military and much more of an ability to expand it than we have, yet do you see them bombing and invading and occupying other countries? How does their use of military force vis-a-vis their capacity compare to ours?

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The argument would be that our superior power keeps them in check. If America disappeared tomorrow, I think it highly likely that both China and Russia would be more warlike than we've been in the past few decades. But there's no way to know.

Winsmith's post was a prime example of American Exceptionalism. While claiming he wasn't defending America's military assaults around the globe, he tries to minimize them. Saying other empires have done more, so America isn't that bad by comparison. America has actually been restrained in it's use of force, so we are actually better then others. Winsmith you are indeed defending America's military aggression, even if you claim otherwise. You are saying when America does it it's ok, while others are bad. That is by definition American Exceptionalism.

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That's logically inane, CS. I've never defended our military adventures of the past decade. I've been A fierce critic of the Iraq War on Daily Kos since 2004.

If you want to act like I'm some closet covert republican, go ahead, I know that's the thing to do on message boards.

I'm simply taking issue with Glenn's premise, and what I think is a profound historical ignorance that our side frequently displays, which is an anger at American failure that fails to place into historical context the actions we take.

EVERY empire is war mongering. Why? Because the masses are stupid, have always been stupid, and will always be stupid. Manipulating the masses to go to war is an easy thing, as in that famous quote from Goerring.

The genius of America is in our system of checks and balances, that tempers this base impulse.

The impulse itself isn't unusual, as Glenn seems to think, it's normal. All we can do is create a system to fight it. We will never get rid of it. It's endemic to the human animal.