To grasp the changing nature of military influence domestically, consider the military's relationship to the media. Its media megaphone offers a measure of the reach and influence of that behemoth.
Here is the very first TomDispatch American Way of War Quiz. Admittedly, it covers only the last four weeks of war news you wouldn't believe if it weren't in the papers, but we could have done this for any month since October 2001.
It's actually going to feel better to be just another nation, one more country, even if a large and powerful one, on this overcrowded planet, rather than the nation.
By the time Petraeus' melded version of foreign and war policy comes to an end, whenever that is, we're guaranteed one thing: There's not going to be much left that's recognizably American about America.
Like people bingeing on anything, the present Pentagon and military cast of characters can't stop themselves. The thought that in Afghanistan or anywhere else they might have to go on a diet, as sooner or later they will, is deeply unnerving.
