In those early days of mournful anger and – say it - altruistic hopefulness immediately following 9/11, it made perfect sense to separate the ostensibly minority radical Islamist fringe from their peaceful co-religionists. A fight was clearly upon us and we chose to frame it as a war that we could swiftly win – topple the Taliban for hosting Al Qaida, topple Saddam for being the industrial sum of all apocalyptic fears. In the place of tyranny, plant optimism and freedom. We asked ourselves, who would resist the chance to govern themselves, even if a hated enemy offered such an opportunity? And we asked for our own part, who would want to fight a war against a billion people? That’s a war that we could certainly win militarily - although at great price - but risk the losing of our own national soul in the destruction of our enemies. We would risk becoming what we had beheld.As old whatshisface would say: Read the whole thing.
And after all, what should it profit us to gain the whole world, but lose our own soul?
Neptunus Lex » A long war
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