Neo-conservative columnist William Kristol recently remarked on Fox News that closing our embassies in Yemen was a sign of weakness, and a capitulation to al-Queda. Apparently closing the embassies to protect foreign diplomats is some form of kowtowing to extremists. I sincerely wish that the U.S. government had not given in to the demands of our own extremists like William Kristol and pursued a war with a nation that had done nothing to us. We are allowing our government to have more and more power to delve into our privacy in the hopes of finding that nebulous "other", or to find the ticking time-bomb scenario so popular in "24". We have wound up with a more radicalized nation in Iraq, an unwinable war in Afganistan, and an increased perception of America as an occupying power in the Middle East. Increasingly, we are seen as an empire determined to exercise our will through any means neccessary.
And in a large part, our leaders in Washington have re-inforced this image time and again. Why? Because some men in Washington saw the need for another draining conflict after the Cold War that they could use as an excuse to increase their power and influence over American policy, both foreign and national. And out in the Middle East, there is a nutbag laughing his ass off that America is fighting him in such a way as to increase his own power. There might not be any winner in this conflict, but I know the loser will be the American people.