"[W]e are in deep, deep trouble. An important manifestation of that trouble is this shortsighted infatuation with military power… There's such an unwillingness to confront the dilemmas we face as a people that I find deeply troubling. I know we're a democracy. We have elections. But it's become a procedural democracy. Our politics are not really meaningful. In a meaningful politics, you and I could argue about important differences, and out of that argument might come not resolution or reconciliation, but at least an awareness of the consequences of going your way as opposed to mine. We don't even have that argument. That's what's so dismaying."

-Andrew Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran and professor of international relations at Boston University