[lr4444lr]

Far though I may be from supporting that counterculture, we lost almost 10X as many troops fighting in Vietnam - many conscripted - than in the middle east, and we hadn't suffered any attack from that part of the world on the scope of 9/11. I was not alive during the Vietnam War, but it's been my distinct impression that its critics saw our involvement there as straight military-industrial complex imperialism, fueled by the same kind of propagandistic nationalism / fear of the "other" the author discusses. I don't see what substantially new perspective the author is raising.

I can't speak to Latin America, but I recall that General Patton upon the 3rd Reich's surrender in Berlin wanted to quickly broker peace with a friendly German government so that he could press on eastward to Moscow and put an end to the Soviet Union while it was in a weakened state from the failed German invasion. Historic counterfactuals sure are interesting to think about.