Vanity, Venality, Versailles

"Moral vanity [Mark Steyn]

Derb, you're right, in a realpolitik sense, that whether this or that US-allied prime minister gets killed and his corpse dragged through the street should not, in and of itself, determine whether long-term military resources are deployed to any particular part of the world (although I would argue that it's not in America's interest for it to become the received wisdom that any foreign politician in a turbulent nation who aligns himself with Washington is setting himself up for a Foggy Bottom sucker-punch and a violent end).

However, the fate of Sirik Matak and many others in south-east Asia ought, in a civilized society, to persuade moral poseurs still congratulating themselves on their stance of three or four decades to put a sock in it. Or did millions of faraway peasants die in order that pampered parochial narcissist buffoons could preen as heroes in their commencement addresses?

Whether or not America should have a moral war policy, self-absorbed boomers could at least stop deluding themselves that they have a moral peace policy "