"As the 10th anniversary of what Americans once called their Global War on Terror approaches, a plausible, realistic blueprint for bringing that enterprise to a conclusion does not exist." - Christopher Galtenberg

"Those who might once have felt some responsibility for articulating such a plan--the president, his chief lieutenants, senior military leaders--no longer feel any obligation to do so. As a practical matter, they devote themselves to war's perpetuation, closing one front while opening another. More strikingly still, we the people allow our leaders to evade this basic responsibility to articulate a plan for peace. By implication, we endorse the unspoken assumption that peace has become implausible." - Christopher Galtenberg

"What the hawks fail to recognize is that perpetual war poses a bigger threat to the citizenry of a superpower than does terrorism. Already it is helping to bankrupt us financially, undermining our civil liberties, corroding our values, triggering abusive prosecutions, empowering the executive branch in ways that are anathema to the system of checks and balances implemented by the Founders, and causing us to degrade one another." - Christopher Galtenberg

"Being far more powerful than our enemies, we pose the biggest threat to ourselves." - Christopher Galtenberg

The Global War on Terror was a hoax and a fraud from the moment it was conceived -- arguably as early as the 1970s. Neoconservatives had been developing that propaganda meme since at least that era, and they are now entirely in control of this never-ending confidence game with nary a peep of protest from the US Congress. Who would have guessed that it would be so easy to roll over the American people and pick their pockets to the tune of several trillion dollars? - Sean McBride

Americans by a very large majority are unable to pose any intelligent questions about foreign policy, and apparently don't care about how much of their wealth is wasted in losing foreign wars. A nation of sheep indeed. No wonder Obama doesn't feel the slightest need to offer a rational explanation for any foreign or military policy he adopts. The American people are utterly passive. The mainstream media have played a central role in reducing them to this abject state. - Sean McBride

I'd like to just evaluate GWOT in its own time on its own terms, neocon build-up aside. People should first get a grip of how much this is costing, per family... and that we can't afford it. Next that it's immoral... totally so. And finally to look in the damn mirror: how can this country tolerate so much war? - Christopher Galtenberg

To begin to reverse these policies, one is going to have to go hard after the people who have been most responsible for engineering them -- fewer than fifty names constitute the core lobby for the GWOT. - Sean McBride

I'd love to read that list, and an overview of their responsibility. - Christopher Galtenberg

Americans are facing vastly greatly problems than terrorism. I really liked this article by Conor Friedersdorf, but quite a few better minds have been making precisely the same points for a decade now with zero impact on the neocon-controlled mainstream media propaganda machine. - Sean McBride

It's on The Atlantic's feed. Hopefully Bacevich will soon have the same cred as a Nassim Taleb. Till then, keep talking em up. - Christopher Galtenberg

A dozen names will land you smack dab in the command center for the entire Global War on Terror/Clash of Civilizations op: Benjamin Netanyahu, Dennis Ross, Douglas Feith, Frederick Kagan, Joe Lieberman, Michael Ledeen, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Rupert Murdoch and William Kristol. For a full list of names, scan the affiliates of AEI, Commentary, CSP, FDD, FPI, JINSA, National Review, PNAC, RJC, Weekly Standard and WINEP. Everyone who counts is connected to one or more of those organizations. Their social network is exceedingly simple to graph -- but the vast majority of Americans haven't a clue about it and apparently never will. The operation is out there in plain view but still invisible to most Americans. - Sean McBride

The main objective of the Global War on Terror is not to suppress terrorism, but to greatly *increase* it. Neoconservatives are seeking to ignite a holy between the United States and Muslims worldwide -- hence the endlessly escalating provocations, designed to stir things up, not to quiet them. The neocons need an ever-intensifying pattern of terrorist incidents to keep this show on the road. They won't rest until they have used American military power to crush every possible threat to Israel. - Sean McBride

Andrew Bacevich is a courageous soul, but the mainstream media for the most part have no problem ignoring people like him. Skeptics like Bacevich from within the military establishment are off the neocon message of all war all the time against the Muslim world and the enemies of Israel. - Sean McBride

We just need a candidate that doesn't give a shit about Israel. How that would change the conversation. - Christopher Galtenberg

But when the Israel lobby even smells the possibility that an American politician might go off the reservation and begin to cut loose from Israel, it pulls out all the stops to destroy him or her. So the American political system is facing a real dilemma. Either you grovel shamelessly before the lobby, or you don't become a candidate. And the lobby is driving Americans into a permanent state of ever-expanding and ever-escalating wars that will bankrupt us before long while eradicating our civil liberties. In the words of the inimitable Ozzy Osbourne, we're going off the rails on a crazy neocon train. - Sean McBride

Bigger problems than terrorism: 1. Chinese economic competition 2. Korean economic competition 3. Indian economic competition 4. European economic competition 5. crumbling infrastructure 6. extreme wealth inequality 7. global warming and climate change 8. pollution 9. dwindling water resources 10. dwinding oil resources 11. obesity 12. diabetes 13. traffic accidents 14. religious extremism (of all kinds) 15. ethnic nationalist extremism (of all kinds) - Sean McBride

The neocons have taken our eye so far off the ball that it's scary. It's almost like they are an enemy within the gates. - Sean McBride