TomDispatch - Tomgram: Jonathan Schell, Welcome to Camp Quagmire

This is beautiful writing. How sweet it is to move on from Thomas Hobbes.

I think we have seen an attempt to move from an American Republic to an empire. It is failing.
The citizens of Falluja will end as martyrs to the deafeat of the first global fascist dictatorship of the twenty first century.

Blair's decision to be the lieutenant of that imperial power will be his and our lasting shame and disgrace.

TomDispatch - Tomgram: Jonathan Schell, Welcome to Camp Quagmire: "'Most important, in the political arena, the United States is weak, precisely because in the contemporary world military force no longer translates easily into political rule. ‘Covenants, without the sword, are but words,' Hobbes said. Since then, the world has learned that swords without covenants are but empty bloodshed. The Romans in ancient times were able to convert military victories into lasting political power. The United States today cannot. In the political arena, the lesson of the world revolt -- that winning military victories may sometimes be easy but building political institutions in foreign lands is hard, often impossible -- still obtains."