A Definition of War

No matter how you cut it, and no matter what high-flown ideas one can cook up to justify it, war is one thing and one thing only: an act of murder and rapine carried out by young fools under the direction of old fools. Therefore it is amazing but understandable, given the state of the human mind, that generals, like judges, are so greatly respected and honored. Both should be suspect but aren't, because their admirers are also so deeply embedded in the mire in which the darkness is regularly mistaken for being the light.