Summary: We love war. Our newspapers seldom show such exuberance except when we bomb some small nation.
From “There’s Nothing Easy About War – The Libya Version“, Michael Cohen, Democracy Arsenal, 20 March 2011:
I have enormous respect for Shadi’s passion around this issue – and the passion of those supporting the use of force.
In the geopolitical community, rebuttals to war mongers first must acknowledge their passion for war. As if passion for war is a good thing.
Our actions show that the hawks are right. War is our strongest political passion (even stronger than our love of big government and hatred of taxes). Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, providing education to children of the poor, reducing unemployment — we can barely bring ourselves to consider these things, then do little or nothing about them.
Perhaps our Constitutional Republic might have lived longer if we loved it as passionately as we love war.
Update: for a better analysis see “Top 5 reasons we keep fighting all these wars“, Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, 4 April 2011