Quote of the day

Steve Chapman points out what should be obvious to every American, yet seems never to sink in:

"The United States boasts the most powerful military on Earth. We have 1.4 million active-duty personnel, thousands of tanks, ships and planes, and 5,000 nuclear warheads. We spend more on defense than the next 13 countries combined. ...
Since 1991, notes University of Chicago security scholar John Mearsheimer, the U.S. has been at war in two out of every three years....
We are more secure than any country in the history of the world. What almost all of our recent military interventions have in common is that they involved countries that had not attacked us: Libya, Iraq, Serbia, Haiti, Somalia, Panama, Grenada and North Vietnam.
With the notable exception of the Afghanistan invasion, we don't fight wars of necessity. We fight wars of choice."   (emphasis added)

We've never really stood down from World War II, when we took it upon ourselves to be a "global force for good" (a phrase the Navy has now trademarked!).  So when will we finally choose to do something more productive than playing at empire with the 'blessings of liberty' we were bequeathed by those who had no choice but to fight?