I guess fewer and fewer people want to consider what may be lost by obtaining victories this way, perhaps because we too often only care about the now, and not a future that's too far away.

Where are the checks and balances and oversight and accountability for a JSOC-driven military?  What protects us from becoming casualties of so much secrecy?  

I'm not getting the impression that too many people - many of whom were apoplectic about the activities of Blackwater, for example - care now that this is all being done under a Democratic president.

Situational ethics goes pretty much hand-in-hand with ends-justifies-the-means, though, so in that respect, it all makes perfect sense.

That's not helped by the story-of-the-hour method of disseminating information that seems to be so prevalent these days.

And I do think you're right that some of this has been driven by our weariness with "boots on the ground," and I don't think most people realized how much of a double-edged sword this has turned out to be.  The public's scrutiny and pressure have driven a lot underground, out of sight, where it is probably almost totally immune from public oversignt and pressure - and I'm not sure that's always the best thing.

Does anyone seriously think these terrorist would exist or be attacking us if we were not occupying their lands and supporting the oppressive dictators that run their countries? Or would they, as Bush claimed, hate us anyway for our freedoms?

JSOC, covert, overt whatever.  If you want to put out the fire step one is to stop pouring gasoline on it.  What if instead of wasting $2-3 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan (while the criminal culprit hid out in Pakistan) we instead spent that money on developing energy substitutes for Middle East oil?

For the vast majority of us the only impactful thing about our global empire  is the loss of jobs and manufacturing to other countries and the subtle and the very real undermining of US labor and environmental laws that occurs when US business and capital moves to the third world. Of course, for the owners of all that capital, you know, the taxpayer bailed out geniuses, empire is very profitable, and terrorism and the war thereon a justifiable cost of doing business.  Better yet, with tax cuts for the rich and all volunteer armed forces its a business cost the  financial movers & shakers who run this country have yet again successfully, dare I say it, socialized.