War In All Its Concreteness

Imagine thousands of bloodied and mangled bodies strewn everywhere. The bodies of mothers and fathers, kids and teenagers, lovers and friends -- people as removed from the power of their despot as we are from that of our oligarchs. Blood gushing out of skulls, arms and legs sundered and slashed, eyes missing, throats perforated or slit. Babies napalmed, strangers snowed under by a collapsing building, wives raped and shot...

Imagine homes demolished. Schools and museums, hospitals and churches (mosques) torched or bombed out of existence or run over by tanks. Rivers and streams polluted and poisoned, streets and highways destroyed, neighborhoods turned into rubble, debris.

Death, carnage, blood, raging fires, and enemies who swear to their god that they'll never forget it, that the "Great Satan" will live to rue the day.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, a handsome general in a royal blue suit is pointing to a map, reassuring a congenial press corps that the "enemy has been neutralized," that "collateral damage has been minimized," that "civilian casualties are surprisingly low."