The recent murders at Ft. Hood recall Pascal's
observation that "Men never do evil so cheerfully and
so completely as when they do so from religious
conviction."

Of course, the assumption in this country at the moment
is that only Muslims are evil, which ignores Christians
doing evil to Muslims in Afghanistan or Jews
threatening to nuke Iran in the name of civilization.

In the end, it doesn't make much difference whether
your husband or son is killed by a Muslim major in Ft.
Hood, an American drone in Pakistan, or a Israeli
soldier in Gaza. In each case the dead are victims of
violent religious and cultural hubris.

Or consider that the war, along with that in
Afghanistan, was the creation of politicians blithely
willing to cause that many deaths to win reelection and
supported by generals and admirals who thought it was a
good idea and who then ordered Major Hasan and tens of
thousands of others to engage in battle as an
absolutely indisputable act of responsibility.

Or think about one little symbol of all this. Pull up a
photo of the Joint Chiefs, those responsible for
conducting wars like Iraq and Afghanistan and sending
people to fight in them. Notice their chests bedizened
by ribbons.

Now ask yourself: in what other field of human endeavor
could one wear ribbons indicating areas of service,
major campaigns, training, unit achievement, and
personal accomplishment without people regarding you as
completely mad?

And in what other job can you wantonly kill so many
people and be treated as a normal human being?

None of this excuses Major Hasan but it puts his acts
in perspective: a uncontrolled act of madness in a
deliberately insane system.

We don't think about such things much, because most of
us don't have to. The business of war has been
outsourced to the weakest parts of our economy, to
victims of our pathological economic system among
others.