War As the Default

Glenn Greenwald, contrarian constitutional lawyer and blogger, writes about the 'foreign policy community' who advise people like General McChrystal and President Obama:

What would a group of people like that ever recommend other than continued
and escalated war? It's what they do. You wind them up and they
spout theories to justify war. That's the function of America's Foreign
Policy Community. As one of their leading members -- Leslie Gelb,
President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations -- recently wrote in
re-examining the causes of his enthusiastic support for the attack
on Iraq:

"My initial support for the war was symptomatic of unfortunate tendencies
within the foreign policy community, namely the disposition and incentives to
support wars to retain political and professional credibility....We must double
our commitment to independent thought, and embrace, rather than cast aside,
opinions and facts that blow the common--often wrong--wisdom apart."