Dancing Boys

A purblind oligarchy that flatly refused to see
that history was condemning it to the dustbin
--Jasper Griffin

The ressentiment which is establishing itself is the process of levelling, and while a passionate agestorms ahead setting up new things and tearing down old, razing and demolishing as it goes,
reflective and passionless age does exactly the contrary: it hinders and stifles all action
--Søren Kierkegaard, Two Ages: A Literary Review
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The Long Wars are an exercise in futility and signify a lack of moral, legal and religious clarity. The concept is a violation and corruption of the concept of liberalism, rationality and civilization itself.

Today's wars are criminal insanity, and opposition is futile since we as a society accept this corruption of thought and logic, bringing it under the rubric "national security" when the facts say otherwise. This mirror image of reality we call national policy.

The national consensus hangs upon the thread the the U.S. is fighting Islamic extremism and that killing Taliban is an effective countering of the threat as the Taliban provides support for al-Qaeda terrorism. Regardless of the truth of the hypothesis, the resultant wars of aggression and attrition serve no meaningful purpose as they accomplish no relevant objectives associated with the concept of war.

While we have become a nation of warriors, we have relinquished the goal of obtaining anything meaningful from our warring. Logic demands the violence of war produce a meaningful balance to the initial casus belli, regardless of whether the cause was justified or even legal. War demands an outcome that moves a nation towards a positive goal. Winning must be a positive outcome, a factor missing today.

After spending $750 Billion in Afghanistan and fighting a war sans clearly defined objectives, minus a clearly defined enemy, the U.S. has achieved nothing which could be defined as a positive outcome in theatre. Ditto Iraq. Both have been a dance of death in the theater of absurdity, having no discernable purpose other than as circus events to delude and distract a restive U.S. audience. Pass the nachos.

War has lost its political relevance, becoming an emotional exercise mimicking gang warfare.

Violence and killing must have a logical objective beyond bog simple violence and killing. Warfare is not assassination programs and secret prisons, and must have more significance than drones dealing death to whomever happens to be the target du jour. Death is not the objective of war, though that has become our policy.

As a capitalistic consumer society, we should ask what we are getting in return for our outlay on wars and related intelligence. Security dictates a return on our dollars and a profit commensurate with the investment. But this is no quid pro quo.

The wars cannot be justified on any level, yet they prosper and grow in an unjustifiable manner, like a malevolent weed. They make little sense when looking at the realities of our national economic tapestry, which is being rent daily.

The wars are a tragedy or a travesty, depending on how deeply invested you are.