It's tragically ironic that while Obama appropriately fired McChrystal for insubordination, he promised that America's longest war - one that no one honestly thinks that we can win - will continue.

These are the last gasps of empire by a President who promised change, but America's long history of empire - which reached its zenith after victories in World War II - is nearing its end as China, Russia and India advance into Asia, Africa and even tentatively into South America.  We are a debtor nation now that would implode if our major lenders, including China (with 25% of our debt in its pocket) called in their loans.

Maybe Obama thinks that he is preparing America for a soft landing into the reality that our lifestyle of comfort and inexpensive products that come with empire is just about over.

But the problem is that the wealthy have billions and billions of dollars to cushion the fall of the U.S. as other nations pick up its manufacturing capability and corporate presence on the world stage, while the middle and working class will hit the economic reality - and indeed are doing so now -  on their bare feet without a parachute.

To advance a war economy built basically on the concept of preserving an empire over nations that provide us with natural resources - most significantly oil and natural gas - is increasingly a last gasp, a literally dying hand while playing the game of "Risk."

Obama appears hellbent on proving to the industrial-military complex, to global corporations who no longer owe any allegiance to the U.S., and to Wall Street (despite some "reforms" that they can easily live with), and to the super wealthy in the U.S. that he will continue the course of empire, even when he probably knows that America needs to look forward to a more sustainable, equitable and realizable future that will not be based on propping up empire through military might, the IMF and the World Bank among others.

God didn't give America its greatness; heroes of democracy - of an idea of human equality that emerged from the enlightenment - did. But our revolution was only one stage in the history of men and women. And history moves on.  It has no interest in the perceptions of "entitlement" proclaimed by deluded individuals.  Just look at the empires that were Rome, England, Spain, or the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. History is littered with the archeological carcasses of empires who thought themselves eternal.

So it is with the U.S, "flag patriots," attempting to preserve a lifestyle that is fueled on hubris because there is almost no production economy to keep it alive, just dreams of past "glory days."

We Thought That We Were Electing a Prius, and Got a Tank Instead: The Last Gasps of Empire