Using the AfPak battlefield as a testing ground, the U.S. military, under NATO auspices, has developed the most sophisticated high-tech weapon of the 21st century and has elevated warfare to the highest levels of cynicism. Operated through a screen from the other side of the world, unmanned drones slaughter indiscriminately and with impunity great swaths of the civilian population without placing U.S. lives at risk. Barack Obama is weighing how to overhaul the U.S. approach to the Afghan conflict and increasing significantly the use of unmanned drones may well be an overriding consideration.
On the night gold dust fell on the stars in Hollywood, millions of men and women were putting their lives on the line in Iraq merely by casting a vote. Hollywood nervously measured the size of the television audience for its Academy Awards ceremony while a different statistic was measured in Iraq, where 62 percent of the eligible voters demonstrated courage at the polls.
Hubris? We’re bigger than that!
The Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote "Oh what a gift a gift to gie us, to see ourselves as others see us." Burns could not have possibly predicted a hubris ridden twenty-first century America not much given to introspection, but there were certainly enough examples of over mighty kings and princes in his own time for him to draw upon. Burns' enduring wisdom about people and their ways is particularly relevant in our own time--something that might give pause to all Americans as Washington's political class blunderingly continues to seek to remake the world in its own image. A bit of Burnsian self-criticism might also help the many pundits who inhabit the media talk shows, bombarding the American public with their wisdom explaining why things are the way they are and why we citizens should be satisfied that a state of continual warfare in pursuit of a dubious new world order, is the best we can hope for.
With the first major phase of nato's offensive against the Taliban completed, the coalition forces are sharing high expectations they will break the militants' control in other areas, as well. But brigadier Amir Sultan Tarar, widely regarded as the 'Godfather of Taliban', told RT that NATO will never succeed in Afghanistan, and they should, instead, enter negotiations with insurgent leaders.
According to the CIA’s favorite newspaper, 
Post-9/11, Dick Cheney warned of wars that won't end in our lifetime. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said America "is engaged in World War IV, and it could continue for years....This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us." GHW Bush called it a "New World Order" in his September 11, 1990 address to a joint session of Congress as he prepared the public for Operation Desert Storm.
