How do you keep war accountable to the American people when war becomes invisible and virtual?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People have a very political way of looking at war, and that's understandable.
In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.
War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.
We have as a nation been duped by those who use our guilt about how we treated the innocent pawns in the Vietnam War game - the soldiers - into missing the point once again about the utter senselessness that is war.
Without a clear picture of where the military's covert forces are operating and what they are doing, Americans may not even recognize the consequences of and blowback from our expanding secret wars as they wash over the world.
Overseas, America's fighting men and women have been waging war against those who would attack America and plunge the world into a period of darkness, and their success can easily be seen.
The best way to avoid warfare is if no one shows up.
War is in the eyes.
Wars tend to be very public things, they are visible. There are correspondents traveling with the troops and you get daily dispatches.
The American system of civilian control of the military recognizes that soldiers' attention must be fixed on winning battles and staying alive, and that the fog of war can sometimes obscure the rule of law.