By Steve Clemons

The political demise and fall of Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the best news from Japan I have seen in some time.

. . .is now very much in the past tense for two US soldiers, now dead, who helped pen an important August 19th New York Times op-ed, “The War As We Saw It,” authored by seven soldiers in Iraq. FireDogLake has more. Petraeus called these soldiers the new “Greatest Generation.

I’m working on an article about whether or not we will bomb Iran right now — and am trying to sort through a mesmerizing talk that Peter Bergen gave about a resurgent al Qaeda organization. I’ll be back later when finished with the op-ed.

(painting of President Dwight Eisenhower by Mike Hagel; hanging in Senator Chuck Hagel’s private Senate office) Before he departs the Senate 16 months from now, Senator Chuck Hagel will have many opportunities to focus a national spotlight on the gaps in the foreign policy and national security course the country is on.

Chuck Hagel is standing down, something this blog highlighted a few days ago. I think that as things look at the moment, the next president is likely to be a Democrat — but the country still will be deeply divided.

(Civil rights attorney Leonard Weinglass) All I’d need to write here is Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or Haditha to make the case that America has lost its moral credibility in much of the world. It’s tough to make a case against other thugs in the world when we deploy unaccountable thuggery of our own.

In mid-August, I was flying off to participate in the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue. I was catching an 8 am flight at Dulles Airport and for whatever reason was being escorted to the front of some very long security lines and was given the red carpet treatment by TSA. I have no idea why.

I think I’m going to initiate a new regular feature at The Washington Note called “Over the Line.” This will just be stuff that goes a notch or ten too far. Some funny. Some tragic. I have three items today.

At about 12:40 pm today EST, I will be doing an interview on NPR’s new “Bryant Park Project” show on the subject of the APEC leaders meeting in Australia.

Given the complicity between the Executive branch and the military industrial complex in feeding at the trough of the treasury, I’m not sure that there has ever been much “objectivity of voice” among the military leadership — but perhaps the myth itself was useful.