Fragmentation, Dimunition, Destruction

Mark Danner takes stock of the War on Terror in three words: by the fragmentation, dimunition, and destruction it has wrought.* Danner writes:

In September 2001, the United States faced a grave threat. The attacks that have become synonymous with that date were unprecedented in their destructiveness, in their lethality, in the pure apocalyptic shock of their spectacle. But in their aftermath, American policymakers, partly through ideological blindness and preening exaggeration of American power, partly through blindness brought about by political opportunism, made decisions that led to a defeat only their own actions -- that only American power itself -- could have brought about.

Sounds kind of like a self-inflicted jujitsu maneuver, doesn't it?

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*h/t Fallows.
Photo: shows Bush falling off a Segway scooter.