I'm glad you finished the article off with the Chris Hedges quote because that says it all though some of your readers can't help but inject their silly irrelevancies. If there is a back story it's the destruction of US democracy which means foreign policy, the military, the media and congress are all in lock step.

So we can write articles critical of the MIC and politicians can even chime in with little push back because there is no mechanism to change anything. When the Democrats unanimously vote for the $40 billion you know that democracy is dead.