Casualties of war
Reuters
Truth, it is said, is the first casualty of war. Civilizations on earth have waged war since the beginning of time and those who wage it were the first to recognize that truth and war could not co-exist. “In war, truth is the first casualty,” said Greek dramatist Aeschylus somewhere around 500 BC. “All warfare is based on deception,” proclaimed fifth century Chinese General Sun Tzu in his military manual, The Art of War. Perhaps it is fitting that Sun Tzu is one of the credited authors of the belief that wars must be based on lies. The Art of War is required reading in many political science courses and is widely cited as the perfect manual for political campaigns by practitioners ranging from James Carville to Karl Rove. With that background in mind should we be surprised by America finds itself once again mired in a war founded on deception, driven by deceit and fueled by the illusion of victory? War, by its very nature, can only exist through a desire to portray things as they are not in order to achieve goals that are misstated through expectations that cannot be met. Go back through the history of wars and you will find one side of the other, or both sides, breaking promises or making claims that were untrue.
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