Farewell to the American Century
By Andrew Bacevich
Americans have perpetuated a mythic version of the past that never even approximated reality and today has become downright malignant.
What are we to make of these blunders?
The temptation may be to avert our gaze, thereby preserving the reassuring tale of the American Century. We should avoid that temptation and take the opposite course, acknowledging openly, freely and unabashedly where we have gone wrong.
We should carve such acknowledgments into the face of a new monument smack in the middle of the Mall in Washington: We blew it. We screwed the pooch. We caught a case of the stupids. We got it ass-backwards.