The Politics of War

War, it was said by Sun Tzu, is nothing more than love incarnate. Love Incarnate in the act of destruction, violence, occupation- on the seas, in the air, and in the boots on the ground. We certainly cannot refute love, can we?

War, of which I know nothing about other than what I have read, is the archetypal struggle between master and slave (I know it sounds trite, however, I reserve the right to be so). The terrorists have the morals of the slave, and fight us as slaves fight masters... But as I have been taught, even in the plantation era south there is a certain affection between the masters and the slaves- a sort of mutual conditional dependence. The jihadists WANT a fight, and I'll be damned if we won't give it to them. The radical fundamentalist Islamists need a master to fight against, and there is no doubt that history in the context of the brute force of globalization will prove that America and Israel are the masters of the middle east. We shall see another American century this century as Tom Wolfe said so eloquently in a recent interview (TW, author of Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff). He defended bushes intervention in the Middle East as proper and right and, indeed, good natured; and debunked the myth that there is no connection between Iraq and terrorism in the middle east (a dubious media created rumour).

War is central to the human condition- We war, in some way, with those we disagree with...

War is central to the human condition- It creates as well as destroys.

War is central to the human condition- Everyday life is on the frontlines of an historic struggle between ideologies and philosophies and Theologies.

We are living in dangerous times- and vileness, baseness, obscenity, and asphyxiation threaten us at every turn, and often times are our rewards for virtue (and as Rober Ebert once wrote, 'virtue' in itself is an absurdity).

Forgive me for feeling that war is for civilians as well as soldiers... but the great generals of our time and historically made many important philosophical distinctions, most of which no one but those famed heroes are even privy to...

But I have uncovered one important ancient truth to war that resonates in every battle throughout the ages.

Strength is the one virtue that makes all other virtues possible.