This is from the October 5, 2008 entry of Chris Floyd's "Empire Burlesque" blog. This is only a snippet of his long, incredibly well-reasoned, yet easy to follow treatise called "The Wounded Shark: 'Good War' Lost, But The Imperial Project Goes On."

"...beyond these more immediate, gritty concerns, there is also the blind, iron logic of perpetual war that drives any imperial power. Like a shark, it must keep moving, must keep the water churning, obscured with clouds of blood and fear -- or else it will stand revealed as the naked, brutish, pointless thing that it is: a bestial lust for domination, a secretion of the chemical mud that lies in the lower swamps of our misfiring, imperfect brains. Every imperial project bedecks itself with high-flown rhetoric and shining, self-glorifying, emotion-rousing ideals. These are internalized by millions of individuals, who are then unable to see the world in any other way. Whatever is done in the name of these ideals is rational, reasonable and right; anything that threatens their primacy and authenticity is evil, insane and worthy of destruction."

But read all of it. If you never read anything else about the illegal and immoral actions of our benighted country, read this. Then see if you can get out that damned spot.