America, save thyself..... (not the Muslim world)

Excerpt from a Harper's article by Andrew J. Bacevich:

"In short, time is on our side, not the side of those who proclaim their intention of turning back the clock to the fifteenth century.   The ethos of consuption and individual autonomy, privilege in the here and now over the eternal, will conquer the Muslim world as surely as it is conquering East Asia and as surely as it has already conquered what was once known as Christendom.  It's the wreckage left in the wake of that conquest that demands our attention.   If the Unived State today has a saving mission, it is to save itself. Speaking in the midst of another unnecessary war back in 1967,  Martin Luther King got it exactly right, 'Come home, America.'  The prophet of that era urged his countrymen to take on 'the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.'

Dr. King's list of evils may need a bit of tweaking - in our own day, the sins requiring expiation number more than three.   Yet in his insistence that we first heal ourselves, King remains today the prophet we ignore at our peril......"