The Tiger Woods of Nationsby David Michael Green
Published on Saturday, August 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
We are the Tiger Woods of nations.
We've been very good at a couple of things for some time now. Things like commerce and belligerence. Or, best yet, commerce backed by belligerence. Things that involve a bit of testosterone.
For the better part of a century now, America has stood head and shoulders above its nearest competitors when it comes to the size of our military and the enormity of our economy.
We have also run (although generally far more poorly than our arrogance would allow most of us to recognize) an endless succession of wars over the past half-century, once again far more than has whatever country might be number two on the list. Think of it this way: We were at war for four years in Korea (and have had a huge number of soldiers there since, as well as in Japan and Germany), twenty years (depending on how you count) in Vietnam, nine years now in Afghanistan, eight years in Iraq, and throw in another couple for all the lesser affairs like, Panama, the first Iraq war, Somalia, the Balkans, Lebanon, Grenada, et cetera and et cetera. Even if we leave aside the constant military and covert interventions in Latin American and most of the rest of the world, nor the forty-five years of ‘cold' war with the Soviets, by my count that leaves the US with roughly forty-three ‘war-years' out of the last sixty-five since World War II (itself, of course, the granddaddy of them all).
In other words, this country has been at war for basically two of every three years since 1945. Ouch. Of course, there could be a plausible explanation for that. I'm sure that if you ask the likes of Charles Krauthammer or George Will, they would give you some nauseating line of dogma singing the praises of America, the indispensable power, the policeman to the world, the valiant protector of peace and freedom who steps up to the plate when all others cower and free-ride. 
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