THE GATHERING PERFECT STORM OF WAR AND FAILURE?
This wonderful country of ours is not immune to failure -- we have failed in the past. 

Our financial/economic system failed in the 30’s. The entire system failed during the Civil War. We failed in Vietnam. We failed on women’s rights for much of our history. We failed on recognizing slavery for the evil it is for about 100 years. We failed to recognize the magnitude of the threat of Japan in 1941 and Hitler in the 30’s.

But each of these failures led to success and a stronger country. I fear we are now in the middle of the PERFECT FAILURE from which we may not emerge as a better country.

Note these ten conjectures: 
1     We have a super religious president who knows God is on his side. 
2     We have a staggering economy.
3     We have a Congress who defied the Constitution when they recently passed the resolution essentially giving the President the right to declare War. This is a clear collapse of our historically revered “Separation of Powers” doctrine.
4     We have the horrible attack of 9/11 which had the essential result of rallying the country around a President who was having a hard time trying to figure out what to do about our staggering economy.
5     We have a public looking for ways to avenge the terrorist attack of 9/11.
6     We have Saddam, a terrible dictator, as a target. He looks like he can be easily defeated on the battleground ( but he may be able to cause incredible damage before he is actually killed ).
7     We have a group of trusted Presidential advisors who have been out to get Saddam for at least 12 years (Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz, Vice President Cheney & Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ).
8     We have the peculiar situation where the activists against the Vietnam war are in general vilified -- even though they were obviously right. That makes reasonable people (the general public and Congress) reluctant to stand up against the President on issues of War. None of us wants to be disloyal.
9     We have a public and elected officials who sees this as an unfolding show. We are more interested in (a) seeing how it will turn out than we are in (b) stopping it.
10    No other nation or group of nations can stop us. As a nation, we think we are strong enough to do whatever we want to do anywhere in the world. 
Will this perfect storm of events lead us to (1) a monstrous failure of our system or (2) an enormous success and an even better country or (3) will we simply wallow and founder for years in the aftermath?
Stay tuned -- you are about to find out.