Karen Kwiatkowski

http://www.antiwar.com/kwiatkowski/?articleid=2762
Barnett points out that the American social political reorientation has already started, and that our new organizing construct rests on two key documents: The PATRIOT Act of 2002 and the 2002 National Security Strategy. The PATRIOT Act might be described as a legislative assault on the Constitution, approved sight unseen by the Congress. The National Security Strategy introduced the radical concept of pre-emptive executive war. The sleeping legislative and aggressive executive are complemented by a silent judiciary which, in an interesting way, is represented by what Barnett calls a "real answer man," Attorney General John Ashcroft. An "answer man" is a "new source of authority within the government … armed with extraordinary legal powers, which might strike many citizens as threatening their basic civil rights."

Irving Kristol lamented recently, "It's too bad. I think it would be natural for the United States … to play a far more dominant role in world affairs … to command and to give orders as to what is to be done. People need that. There are many parts of the world – Africa in particular – where an authority willing to use troops can make … a healthy difference."

One final note. The Pentagon's New Map includes the use of a German word I had never heard of: Götterdämmerung. It means "a turbulent ending of a regime or an institution." If we follow Barnett's national and global security advice in The New Pentagon Map, we just might achieve Götterdämmerung – not in rogue states where he expects, but back home in Washington.