It really does seem like hollywooders are tools for the gov doesn't it? Tools of distraction, bread and circuses stuff. No wonder so many of them are liberal heavy weights. They eat of the attention from the white house AND the fans (second handers!) For the life of me I can not figure out why it's fashionable to be in the know about movie stars.... how do people even have time to waste on that crap? WAKE UP AMERICA YOUR FREEDOM IS CRUMBLING AND KANYE KARDASHIAN IS A BAG OF NOTHING! (I only know who he is because I have to grocery shop and while I'm waiting for the hippo in front of me who's paying for her two carts full of junk food with her snap card and taking too long, I have only the rag mag covers to glare at until it's finally my turn to pay, with my own money...THAT I EARNED.) A few days, while I was waiting in line I almost bit my tongue off to keep me from blurting out..."Am I paying for that?"

As much as they blow smoke, militarily, they have a very long way to go... it takes a lot more than a lot of people to build nuclear aircraft carriers that can carry battle wings and stay at see for months, or submarines that can remain under the ocean for a year.

Whenever given the choice, they like to steal what they think is advanced technology and then build a cheapie knock-off of it (like their first aircraft carrier, that is really more or less a cargo ship). They lack targeting systems, smart weapons, and the military contractor industrial complex to invent and build them...

Innovation just isn't their strong suit.

The Russians already figured most of that out, they have some issues with quality, but they can definitely do it.

Yo! Rock!! Where the hell have you been???

You touched upon their weakest link...the ability to feed their population.

As long as we refuse to become energy independent, we are in the same vulnerable position.

We have all that we need to regain the upper hand...but we lack the will, or direction.

True about the "superpower" wakeup call...but I would add Red China.

Anyone getting deja vu about the fall of Saigon on this one? I'm waiting to see the last helicopter leave the roof of our embassy as Obama & Kerry's forces retreat and lower the flag as Al Qaeda raises their black Islamic flag over the US Embassy in Baghdad... what a "proud day" that should be for the Obama regime.

From now on, I vote we no longer refer to it as an administration... Obama's court is a "regime" that needs to go at this point.

So much for "increasing America's prestige around the world". Losing a massive embassy to a bunch of Talibani's & Jihadis will look "wonderful" when broadcast around the world on Al Jezeera.

It really does seem like at this point, for them to have freedom security, they either need to provide it with their own blood (and it will mean something then), or give up their treasure and hire mercenaries (like Blackwater) to do it for them.

We can't change their culture, and we can't teach them courage.. they need to find that inside. My experience with them has always been a bunch of wimps.. I'm sorry to say, but its the truth. They only fight when there are some big strong Americans standing next to them or behind them... take that away and it falls apart immediately (as we just saw).

I was integrated into UN forces in Africa during the Rwandan relief crisis (as much as US troops are ever "integrated"... not much... ) and it was the same thing there (African national armies). Bunch of wimpy-looking skinny dudes holding hands with each other (literally) in the bush with their rifles 400 yards away in the back of their truck. The stuff you see on TV... the propaganda videos of them jumping out of foxholes or whatever to unsuspecting victims.. never really happens... if they can't blow someone up with a tripwire or something, they are rarely around for the fight.

A resurgence of Russian nationalism is a little scary... as an armed forces, I think we got a little used to enemies that really don't fight back very much, or even have the means to do so, having to confront another superpower at some point would dramatically change our way of thinking in terms of national security and defense.

I agree with all... there really isn't a win to be had here, I'm not a BO fan by any means, but I've been there myself, and its just really hard to figure out who the friends are. Obviously, if they didn't have oil, we'd build a wall around the whole thing and let them die in the desert. Maybe it really isn't a bad approach... their population is unsustainable with their "real" physical resources the land can provide, and if they didn't have oil to buy them with, it would be very different.

Sealing it off and letting them fight it out may be the only "real" way forward, and then go in and clean up whatever is left of radicals if need-be.

There is a great of wisdom in what you say...the two-lane blacktop retreat from Kuwait, could be the current "pictures at 11" for the rush to Bagdad.

Hard to keep a scorecard on the 'teams' vying for control, since we have seemed to have invested in all of them, at one point or another. Maybe an Arab 'killing fields' is in order....

I do believe (to my dying breath) that we need to watch...and cover...Israel's back.

I agree.

You are correct in your assessment of the ME oil. However, there are refineries there and there is no reason that we could not have benefitted from the product without shipping it here.

The funny thing about Middle East oil... its some pretty thick sludgy stuff... our refineries are better-designed for West Texas style light/sweet crude.

I'm not an oil expert, but I think the ME stuff is mostly used for diesel and shipping fuel. We actually get very little, if any, oil from the Middle East. Its more about stabilizing world markets (for the US interests).

The oil would be incentive enough if we had ever taken it but that would have the left howling at the moon.

I think we would if there was an economic incentive to do so. I just don't see it though. They are practically in the stone ages.

The place has a lot of problems... Obama is looking for someone to stand up and lead, but anyone capable of speaking up and leading was put in the ground by Saddam long ago, much like the problem Mexico has... anyone "industrious" or "intelligent" pretty much left for the US.

Nonetheless, we own it. Obama can't turn his back on this, he pulled our troops out with a half-hearted BS attempt at failing to negotiate a status of forces agreement, and used that as an excuse to leave.

Trying to integrate Shia (oppressed by Saddam for decades), Sunni (was the oppressor.. now the tables have turned) and Kurdish (gassed by Saddam) into the same government is probably quite a stretch... and maybe letting the country split is really the best way forward.

I agree with one thing Obama said though, the fact that 55,000 police & military will lay down their arms and run with something like 7,000 to 9,000 rag-tags approaching them in Toyota pickup trucks is very disheartening. The fact that they "can" is pretty astounding... in the American military, that is desertion and punishable by life or death - see story on Bowe Bergdahl...

It would seem that they don't have the ability to fight off this threat, and it also seems like everyone else needs some skin in the game. Hell, we're oil exporters now... do we really care what the price of oil does? (I'm on solar and have an EV for a daily-driver... so maybe I don't really care either).

Seems like the Saudis and the UAE need to step up with some of that military aid they give them, take the lead on this one, and run their butts back across the border. Having a column of a retreating or advancing army on a highway really isn't much of an issue for us... look at what we did to the Iraqi's when they were running from Kuwait. Speaking of which, seems like the Iraqi army likes to run a lot more than they would prefer to fight... so maybe its too much to assume any of this out of them. There is Blackwater and other security firms... maybe Maliki needs to consider outsourcing. He could probably get bang for the buck out of 50,000 men from Blackwater than he would ever get out of 500,000 towel-heads.

Keep in mind... its the FM versus AM radio dial crowd. Most of his voters are too busy worrying who Kanye West is dating.

And remove the right to private gun ownership.

I said this before the whole thing started over there and I will say it again.

We cannot make the changes that are needed there in the short amount to time that America currently has for an attention span.

For God's sake we are still in Germany and the Germans are much closer to us culturally. For us to actually succeed at the task that we set ourselves it would require a massive investment over the course of at least 100 years and we simply do not have the attention span nor the money to follow through on that.

So how is your way working out? You jingoists have gotten all of the guns and prisons, killed the 4th and second amendments, and this country is going to hell in a handbasket because of it. Still, you complain it's not enough. We need to stay the course in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. etc. etc. In your ideal world, I guess there's no place that would be safe from the US military. Not even the US. Unbelievable.

Point for jingoism.

So how did you feel? I, for one, was glad we finally got the hell out of there, as was anyone with a lick of sense. I was due for the draft in a few more years. We should not have been in Vietnam or in Iraq. Period.

And besides that, why would anyone (much less a libertarian) care whether some sociopath salutes the flag or not? We have too much jingoism as it is.

Actually any credit is too much. Great point about the educational system.

You may be giving them too much credit. I tend toward Ed's comment. There has been a factory of education for 100+ years that have worked to convince some of pseudo-intellectual positions and the rest that critical thinking is too hard.

If you start to show an inkling of believing neither, the deck is stacked to show you that rocking the boat is too much trouble and you should let those who know better do their thing.

When I said we "basically gave up" the we I was referring to was the politicians and media. The military did their jobs and the politicians and media hung them out to dry