Yes, I did. But that would have required an extra sentence, which would have made my reply less pithy. It would be kind of like having to explain that George HW Bush promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch to the east, that the US financed and engineered the 2014 Maidan coup, and that Putin patiently negotiated for eight long years before finally invading Ukraine: less pithy. ;-)

Although provoked, the United States had neither been attacked nor threatened with attack in the run-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What are you talking about? If memory serves, Nuland was only there to hand out cookies. /s

Yup, and it was a solidly DEMOCRATIC federal government that refused to prosecute a single one of the torturers — they only prosecuted people who leaked the torture program, like John Kiriakou — and it was a DEMOCRAT who appealed Slahi's successful habeas corpus challenge and kept him imprisoned for an extra six years. I have even seen reports in Democratic-Party-allied mainstream media that Nancy Pelosi was fully briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques" as a member of the House Intelligence Oversight Committee and that she failed to raise any objections. (See, e.g., https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7586530&... .) It seems pretty clear to me that Democrats were fully complicit in the Deep State's unlawful-detention and torture program but were happy to hide behind plausible deniability and let Republicans take the blame. As Edmund Burke might have put it, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of Republican evil is for Democrats to do nothing."

How does the saying go? "The media can't tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about."

I found it interesting that six of the top-performing countries are "island nations" (with no land borders) that substantially locked down their borders. The real champ, in my opinion, is Vietnam, which despite being poor, having a largish population, and having land borders, clocked in at number two. I'd like to know what they're doing.

It's truly pathetic that the US had offshored so much of its PPE-manufacturing when the pandemic hit and was unable to immediately ramp up production. As a result, Fauci wittingly lied and initially told the public that masks weren't helpful, in order to preserve the limited supply for healthcare workers.

It's truly pathetic that a year in, we still don't have mandatory effectiveness standards for masks sold to the public.

It's truly pathetic that a year in, most American jurisdictions still accept cloth masks and bandanas as adequate protection.

It's truly pathetic that the third of Americans who are either badly underinsured or completely uninsured do not have effective access to healthcare until they're on death's doorstep.

It's truly pathetic that Americans haven't been provided a universal basic income during the pandemic lockdown.

It's truly pathetic that tens of millions of Americans are facing eviction and bankruptcy when eviction and collection moratoriums expire.

I could go on, but what I'm saying is that the COVID-19 statistics themselves are only one part of the US's record of abysmal failure.

By the way, according to Wikipedia, the Lowy Institute (which did this study) was founded by a billionaire Australian-Israeli shopping-center magnate and has been alternatively characterized as neoliberal, center-right, or reactionary. Since Wikipedia's managing editors are themselves on the libertarian/neoliberal end of the spectrum, I wouldn't dismiss these characterizations out of hand. In short, it's unlikely that the Lowy Institute's biases contributed to making the US look bad.

(Similarly, I came across a global survey of healthcare systems by the Economist magazine's Intelligence Unit. Buried deep in report, the US was characterized as having "a very low-value system." If the Economist Intelligence Unit says the US has "a very low-value system," trust me, it's not because the Economist wants to make the hyper-neoliberal US look bad.)

The U.S. seems to have gone completely crazy these day[s].
"These days"? Really?

If you identify as a conservative and continue to believe that your prime enemies are ordinary leftists, or you identify as a leftist and believe your prime enemies are Republican citizens, you will fall perfectly into the trap set for you. Namely, you will ignore your real enemies, the ones who actually wield power at your expense: ruling class elites, who really do not care about “right v. left” and most definitely do not care about “Republican v. Democrat” ....

This.

Also, a more accurate (albeit less pithy) title would be, "The New Domestic War on Dissent is Coming, Under the Guise of a War on Domestic Terror."

Garrison blames the US GOVERNMENT... John Perkins has identified it was Wall Street...
Is there a difference?

Isn't there an asterisk missing from "Honduras 2009"? I'd count President Manuel Zelaya's forcible ouster and Honduras's subsequent withdrawal from ALBA as "successful" régime change.