The drawbacks of humane warfare

Victor Davis Hanson puts his finger on the Post-Vietnam dilemma:

We are confronted with the paradox that our new military's short wars rarely inflict enough damage on the fabric of a country to establish a sense of general defeat � or the humiliation often necessary for a change of heart and acceptance of change. In the messy follow-ups to these brief and militarily precise wars, it is hard to muster patience and commitment from an American public plagued with attention-deficit problems and busy with better things to do than give fist-shaking Iraqis $87 billion.

We may end up being the most powerful nation on earth, but unable to use that power for anything worthwhile, unless we snap out of it.