Sublime

Nothing captured the empty idealism of the age so much as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which was initially signed by fifteen countries in 1928 and eventually included 62 signatories. The parties committed not to resort to war to settle disputes among them. It was less an act of serious foreign policy than an alternative to it—a high-minded statement

pacifism.

The price was never paid by the war’s leaders. As a U.S. Army officer in Iraq wrote in 2007, “A private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.” The cost for Americans fell on the bodies and minds of young men and women from small towns and inner cities. It was unusual to meet anyone in uniform in Iraq who

Middle America was in despair over what its revolting children were up to, though it seemed to have fewer qualms about pouring fire onto the people of Vietnam.

War Is a Racket confirmed everything