The Hollow Empire

When was the last time we won a war?

by Justin Raimondo, September 24, 2012

"While no one was looking, the US lost the war in Afghanistan. The announcement that joint operations involving US/NATO forces and Afghan military and police personnel will cease — “temporarily” — went down with a whimper, not a bang. Since the whole purpose of our continued presence in that country is supposedly to train the forces of Afghan “President” Hamid Karzai, the entire rationale for the war just fell apart, and isn’t it funny — as in funny-weird, rather than funny-ha-ha — that nobody noticed?

Well, not really: we’re in campaign mode, and neither major party presidential candidate is much interested in the subject of a war we’ve been fighting for over a decade, at a cost measured in the trillions (aside from the incalculable human misery).....


To top it off, we’re out of money — and the US economy, the engine and motive power of the Last Superpower’s alleged invincibility, is showing signs of structural instability. If the whole edifice collapses tomorrow, who will be surprised?

As Washington’s lords and ladies bask in the unreal glory of America’s imperial delusion, and look forward to yet another exciting coronation ceremony this winter, the peasants with pitchforks are gathering in the shadow of the castle, their voices rising above the ordinary din generated by our chattering classes. The American people are waking up to the reality, even if our elites are not, and it is a rude awakening indeed. Fired, foreclosed, and fed up, they have had it up to here with the pretensions of our would-be Napoleons and world policemen in both parties. They don’t understand why we’re shipping billions — billions! — of our tax dollars overseas, to Libya, where they’re killing our diplomats, to Egypt, where they’re trying to burn down our embassy, and to Israel, where they’re trying to blackmail us into fighting yet another war on their behalf......"