In withdrawing combat troops from Iraq, it would be nice to think we had taken a big step toward a more rational defense policy.

And yet we are still at war in Afghanistan.

And we don't seem to have learned much from the war we've just ended.

As the troops headed home last week, it was disturbing to hear US officials justifying the war in Iraq. The deaths, the injuries, the torture, the uprooting of millions of Iraqis: "a price worth paying," said Joint Chiefs Chair Martin Dempsey. The sacrifices, said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, were not in vain.

Yes, it's good that Saddam Hussein no longer terrorizes his people. How that came about, though, is not at all good. We invaded a sovereign country and overthrew the government, and top officials lied to us about the reasons.

And as we are seeing daily, the future in Iraq is far from certain; it's not at all clear what we will do if the country disintegrates into civil war.

The human casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to be a burden for many Americans and Iraqis - for decades. Nor is the damage limited to people killed or injured in the fighting. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that for young returning veterans, it's tough to find a job. The unemployment rate for veterans aged 20 to 24 has averaged 30 percent this year - more than double the rate for non-veterans that age.

The billions we have spent on the wars was money we could have invested in health care, in education, in scientific research, in infrastructure....

Fear growing out of 9/11 led us down this path. Fear paved the way for Congressional and public acceptance of the invasion of Iraq. It supported the nearly nine years of fighting there, and it is supporting the quagmire in Afghanistan. And fear has led to other casualties, including the rights of American citizens. Those casualties began with the Patriot Act, and they continue today.

Last week Congress passed, and President Obama apparently plans to sign, controversial legislation that many critics say is loaded with problems.

In an earlier version, the bill - the National Defense Authorization Act - sounded like something written by a paranoid dictator. And while intense negotiations seem to have fixed some of the most egregious problems, the bill forces the government to keep the Guantanamo prison open and prohibits the president from transferring Guantanamo detainees to the US for trial. It expands the military's authority to arrest and try suspected terrorists. It authorizes the arrest and indefinite detention of people who are merely suspected of being members of Al Qaeda or of unnamed "associated forces" or are suspected of having supported them.

The bill "will make indefinite detention and military trials a permanent part of American law," said a Times editorial the day after the Senate passed the legislation.

And while its supporters insist this is not the case, some critics say the bill could be interpreted to permit the indefinite detention of US citizens, arrested on US soil. The bill could "give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial," said the Times' editorial.

By endorsing military arrest and indefinite detention of people even suspected of supporting Al Qaeda, said Florida Democratic Representative Alcee Hastings, the bill in effect "establishes an authority for open-ended war anywhere in the world and against anyone."

"Congress has not tried to curtail civil liberties like this since the McCarthy era," said Hastings.

This is serious stuff, every bit as serious as launching a war under false pretenses. The federal government and the military must protect the country from terrorists, certainly. But that protection doesn't require tossing out the principles on which the nation was founded.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration's embrace of the bill is hardly more disturbing than the lack of public concern.

It's hard to find much of anything to celebrate at the end of this war.