Snap the Whip


Evidently there's some controversy over whether a rather shocking story at TNR is true or not--Hullabaloo has several paragraphs of the subscriber-only report and superb analysis, as usual. She goes on to note something I've touched on before, although more eloquently, of course, namely, the possibility--hell, probability--that some returning soldiers will snap at some point. That's yet another cost of war, one that we all have the tragic potential of having to pay.

As for the TNR report itself...I'm not a subscriber, and so I've only read the three paragraphs or so. But, true or not, it's not like this war hasn't already produced pretty monstrous behavior by all parties involved...well, monstrous in the context of civil society. It's actually par for the course in war, and that's regardless of how "just" any particular conflict might be. War is human existence at its most savage--hell, it makes prison look like model society--which is why you take all steps to avoid it. Even in a "good" or "just" war, the costs end up being paid for a long time.

Which makes Team Bush's war of choice in Iraq all the more galling...and THEN factor in the almost impossible degree of stupidity with which they've waged it.

Oh, and over in Afghanistan, where there actually WAS some justification for hostilities--well, I wonder if there's such a thing as TBADD: Team Bush Attention Deficit Disorder. They didn't just drop the ball there, they gave it a good, swift kick into the caves of Tora Bora...