Articles about which you won't feel dispassionate

Two links, here, two articles of unequal quality, but which I found useful to read together. The first is long, and its topic is likely one that already exhausts you. I doubt you'll want to read it. Do anyway. It is the most intelligent analysis I have read about America's position in its war on terror. No writing on the topic can be fully dispassionate or apolitical, but this analysis comes closer than any other I've read. This level of clarity is a rare virtue. "Taking Stock of the Forever War" by Mark Danner, originally in the New York Times. The second is strident. At its worst, it descends into anti-American bluster and indulges in conspiracy theorizing. It is no match for the first article. Its virtue, however, is its trade in ideas about the United States' geo-political posture at a level that I wish more of us engaged. In other words, it provokes some interesting lines of thought even if, ultimately, I wouldn't care to spend an evening with its author. "The Flagging Empire" by Paul William Roberts, originally in the Globe & Mail (Toronto).