The Colonel Series

 

The Limits of Power by Col Andrew Bacevich, 2008, Excerpts

 

Policy makers have been engaged in a de facto Ponzi scheme intended to extend indefinitely the American line of credit. The fiasco of the Iraq War and the quasi-permanent U.S. occupation of Afghanistan illustrates the results and prefigure what is yet to come if the crisis of American profligacy continues unabated.

 

Long accustomed to thinking of the United States as a superpower, Americans have yet to realize that they have forfeited command of their own destiny. American people have allowed their democracy to be hijacked. One result of that hijacking has been to raise up a new political elite whose members have a vested interest in perpetuating the crises that provide the source of their power. These are the people who under the guise of seeking peace or advancing the cause of liberty devise policies that promote war or the prospect of war, producing something akin to chaos.