What do Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Guiliani and John McCain all have in common?

Among other things, they are all fear-mongers. They all overrate the threat to U.S. national security by Iran. They all treat the alleged threat to U.S. national security by "Islamo-Fascists" as real, as though somehow a small, determined cabal of ultra-extremists could somehow manage to invade and control the United States of America and change our entire way of life.

Apparently, none of these professional politicians have given a millisecond of thought to the fact that the U.S., the world’s most powerful military power in human history, the biggest spender on arms in the world and which outspends the rest of the world combined, could not even successfully take over Iraq, a nation impoverished by a decade of economic sanctions and yet which successfully kept Al Qaeda out of its borders. So how in the world could Al Qaeda or any other "Islamo-Fascist" group take over the U.S? It is a patently ridiculous notion on its very face.

On the other hand, by victimizing thousands of innocent bystanders, by bombing innocent civilians in populated areas, by "lighting up" civilian vehicles packed with non-militant families using machine gun fire, by facilitating Israeli terrorism and property theft, plus genocide, in the Arab world and in Palestine in particular, the U.S. does attract the attention of many who live in a culture that requires revenge, which then becomes labeled as "terrorism".

What is the difference between a superpower and a terrorist?, one commentator asked. The given answer was that a superpower has an air force. Terrorists fight with small numbers of normal weapons against powers with weapons of mass destruction and massive numbers of weapons of average destruction.

Politicians who favor war-making instead of peace-seeking and who endorse massive use of firepower to obliterate suspected enemies thus threaten the U.S. with attack by the victims of our misguided philosophy. They create a self-perpetuating war and series of wars, which are dependent on cycles of extreme violence instigated by us, not them.

The American public is misinformed, disinformed or uninformed on the truth and reality of these truths, and thus political candidates of both parties use the same fear-mongering techniques to get elected.

The world at large sees the U.S. as a bully, a coward, and a threat to world peace. The U.S. dishes out violence and mayhem without restraint, yet winces at the very thought of being attacked by those with a tiny fraction of the might we possess. Isn’t that what bullies do?

The cycles of history do turn and empires come and go. The American empire is like Humpty Dumpty, sitting fat and sassy on the wall, but losing balance and about to take a big fall. If the American public does not get its act together and elect sensible, peace-loving proponents of international fairness and peace such as Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, or Cynthia McKinney to the presidency, the fall of the American empire will come sooner rather than later, and the harm to the U.S. and to the rest of the world will be much larger than necessary.