Superpowers: and then there were none

Jane Smiley at Huffington Post had a telling elegy for American superpowerhood the other day. Here is some of Smiley's post:

We are a country that can no longer pay our bills, no longer wage an effective military action, and no longer protect our citizens from disaster. And it doesn't matter what fiscal responsibility individuals show, what bravery individual soldiers show, or what generosity individual Americans show. As a nation-as a geopolitical entity-we have been stripped of all of our superpowers and many of our powers, and it has been done quickly and efficiently, in the name of blind patriotism, by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and their neocon advisors. The very powers that these people thought they were going to enjoy exercising have slipped out of their grasp. It's laughable now to remember the name of the campaign against Baghdad, "Shock and Awe". No one in Iraq feels any "shock and awe" toward the US presence there any longer. "Fear and Loathing" is more like it.

Oh, and one more thing to add to Smiley's list. We are no longer a country able to protect our citizens from the threat of epidemic infectious disease.

[Cross-posted at Stayin' Alive]