Nice (if rather delusional in places) piece, but then there's this whopper:

"When will we declare a victory and go back to a life of peace?"

Go back to a life of peace? Are you kidding? Have Pearl and Bourgault read anything of American history beyond what's in sanitized high school textbooks? A peaceful nation wouldn't have gotten itself ( and the world ) into this mess. The US was a warmongering imperial power long before Bin Laden did his deed. Mostly what Bin Laden did was to help expose the US to the world as the fraudulent "white hat"  poser it's been for way too long. The rest( including the rapid slide towards a police state ) was done by the US all by itself. Our two "hawkish" candidates are merely carrying on a well-worn tradition. Good luck!