The "something in ourselves" has to do with a phrase I haven't heard since I was in school in the '50s: Manifest Destiny. The belief that we (the United States) were destined to stretch from coast to coast and rule this land in place of the American Indians who were derided as "savages" and therefore not good enough to rule in this land. I've long suspected that the concept of our superiority would not/did not end with the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny. The new Manifest Destiny has morphed into the Spread of Democracy.

Now we come to Iraq. Iraq never was a threat to the United States - even if they had nuclear weapons because they had no means to deliver them in an attack on the United States. The whole "Imminent Threat" ruse was always the reddest of herrings. Nonetheless, the United States seems to have been treating the rest of the world in much the same way that we treated the chunk of ground now called the United States. As white settlers spread west, everything was outstanding until the native population resisted in which case we brought out the military. The native's complaints were, of course, incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. The contemptible savages need to be taught a lesson and then shoved off onto some small tract of land where they can be watched and controlled - preferably some tract of land no one else wanted. We have carried our contempt for the local population into our subsequent wars. Most recently, the Vietnamese were gooks and zipper heads. The Iraqis (and all Arabs) are rag heads. The perjoratives reveal our attitudes towards these people.

So, yes, turning against Shrub is to turn against ourselves but not the violent self-righteousness part of our psyche. Rather we need to confront the part of our psyche that oppressed the American Indians, the blacks, and the Asians. It's the insecure part of our psyche that makes us feel the need to think that we are superior to everybody else.

Precisely the mindset, I think you'll find, behind the Chilean and Argentinean "disappearance regimes".

It can't happen here, I'm telling you my dear, it can't happen here....

This is a (probably) slightly paraphrased quotation from a book of quotations by the Peter Principle author:

The great thing about being a totalitarian state is that in order to defeat you, your enemies must emulate you. Adolph Hitler

(I just moved and can't find the book to give an exact quotation) I'd like to believe that Hitler was wrong but our country's behavior certainly seems to be confirming Hitler's insight.

GodDamn! finally someone I can largely agree with.

Unfortunately, many of my fellow citizens seem to want to cede freedoms and liberties to the federal government so that the government can coddle them to death (unfortunately, you don't get the second without the first).

And the Terri Schivo extravaganza was much more important and non-debasing.

That the real seducers are you daughters of Eve.

Not that I think this is a good idea. You lot are dangerous enough without several extra years of practice with your paints, potions, and philters.

The apparent guiding light for our government's actions in recent decades has been a complete lack of principle and an implementation of the ends justify the means approach to life. This, in the long run, is a prescription for disaster. If they can do this to Al-Marri, they can do it to anyone.

Gen. Clarke's response is a pragmatic and very functional assessment of Mr. Lieberman's jingoism. Unfortunately, there are also some principles also involved here. The UN treaty we signed was supposed to define relations among nations. You can't attack another nation unless (a) the UN as a body says it's OK (for a number of acceptable reasons), (b) you are being attacked, or (c) you are in imminent threat of attack. Of course, this was attempt #2 at controlling nation state behavior. The League of Nations failed to constrain Nazi Germany from attacking Czechoslovakia and Austria. Sadly, seventy years later the UN failed to constrain the US from exactly the same behavior.

The US has enjoyed a remarkable nexus for the last half century or so. We've been both the economic engine for the entire world and the most militarily powerful nation (the collapse of the USSR merely widened the gap, it didn't create it). The US is no longer the economic engine of the entire world. While we are still probably primus inter pares, we won't be for long. And then, the wisdom of Will Rodgers will become evident: If you teach an animal or a man a lesson in meanness, don't be surprised if they learn it.