It lets them talk about "the troops" as an undifferentiated and unimportant mass; the only thing that matters is whether you have enough of them to shove about on your manly map and beat your manly opponent. Who will shake your hand with a cry of "Well played!" and make an appointment for a rematch on Tuesday. Dead men (and women and children) have nothing to do with you.
That, to me, is different from the common human decency of not obliterating a retreating army that you don't believe will be an ongoing threat to you. It isn't the sending of soldiers to their deaths that I'm appalled by, either -- I'm enough of a pragmatist to recognize we're never going to get rid of war -- it's the way these men, by the sound of it, refused to recognize (or at least admit to) the horrific context and consequences of their work. I can and do blame these men for the extent of their self-delusion, or their public illusion if this book was a gentlemen's agreement between the generals and Hart not to talk about the icky stuff in front of the hoi polloi.
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2010-02-12 08:37 pm (UTC)That, to me, is different from the common human decency of not obliterating a retreating army that you don't believe will be an ongoing threat to you. It isn't the sending of soldiers to their deaths that I'm appalled by, either -- I'm enough of a pragmatist to recognize we're never going to get rid of war -- it's the way these men, by the sound of it, refused to recognize (or at least admit to) the horrific context and consequences of their work. I can and do blame these men for the extent of their self-delusion, or their public illusion if this book was a gentlemen's agreement between the generals and Hart not to talk about the icky stuff in front of the hoi polloi.