A One-Way Planet, by Tom Engelhardt

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=5327

Okay, much as I happen to love Plymouth Plantations, it's largely a re-creation of the original settlement and so hardly comparable to Babylon – and, of course, we all know that the Chinese pressure on the Europeans for that embargo against the United States, the Iranian spy program run out of Halifax, Vladimir Putin's comments about the Russian army and Mexico, and the Syrian base in Massachusetts are all in our present world the equivalent of ridiculous geopolitical jokes. After all, we're on a one-way planet when it comes to such matters – and there are so many of them. Similar thought experiments could be done with, for instance, Bush administration nuclear policy vis-à-vis any country we dislike (we build 'em, you don't); occupation policy vis-à-vis Syria and Iraq (we occupy, you can't), and so many other subjects that most of you can probably fill in better than I can.