The Banality of Killing by Jacob G. Hornberger

     "How can all this massive, regular, permanent death and destruction not affect and infect a society? Sure, it all takes place thousands of miles away. Sure, it’s buried on page 14 of the newspaper. We don’t see the caskets or the burials. We don’t see the crying, the anguish, or the anger of the survivors. We just go about our daily business, deferring to authority. Our public officials know what is best. That is their job. We have to trust their judgment. If they say that American soldiers and CIA officials have to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq permanently and just go on killing people forever, then we, the citizenry, just have to accept that. If they say they have to expand the killing to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or wherever, then that is just the way things are. They are the experts. They are in charge.
     In the process, everyone convinces himself that the people who are being killed are “bad guys” or people who just happened to be too close to the bad guys, including their wives, children, other family members, or friends.
     Of course, the possibility that the U.S. government – the invader, the occupier, the interloper – is the “bad guy” doesn’t even enter into most people’s minds. The thought is too horrible, too terrifying. It might cause citizens to have to search their consciences. Easier to simply continue “supporting the troops” who are “defending our freedoms” by killing all those people on a regular, weekly basis."

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