But then the book slides into a discussion of how the war on Iraq could have been better run, which is -- of course -- not what opponents of war would have wanted. From there, Jarecki moves to an account of the military reform movement and the corruption of military contracting. But the final chapter pulls it back together with an account of the leap forward in abusive imperial power seized by Bush-Cheney. And in the conclusion, Jarecki proposes smart progressive solutions to the political disaster that is our nation's capital, even throwing in a pair of sentences for those who would like to see the rule of law brought back in substance as well as form:
"To institute such fundamental changes as reducing the influence of money in politics and rebalancing power between the branches by way of a new national security act, one must overcome inevitable resistance among those who benefit from how things presently work. To this end, particularly given the extreme abuses of the Bush years, any effort at meaningful reform must begin with serious efforts to hold those who committed such abuses accountable. Without accountability, there is insufficient motivation for reform."
The lesson that I hope will be drawn from all of this is that if we want to fund healthcare and schools and green energy we will have to cut war waste and military money, and to do that we will have to wound the military industrial congressional complex, and to do that we will have to start enforcing penalties against those in power who break laws, including commanders in chief.
