"The brothers [de Witt] were clubbed, stabbed, shot, hung by the feet from a scaffold, and subjected to a frenzy of mutilation during which the internal organs were cut out, roasted, and eaten. As an example of the primal savagery festering beneath the brilliant surface of the wealthiest, most civilized nation in Europe, it is an instructive episode."
--Maritime Supremacy, Peter Padfield

We, Americans, hardly eat the roasted internal organs of our enemies and criminals, but I'm somewhat reminded of the visceral pleasure that seemed to be derived from the televised carnage during the first Gulf War, such as the "Road of Death." I believe that this particular blood-lust is unrelated to the violent crime in our nation, but rather is a lurking presence, satisfied by second-hand visitations of brutality on those who oppose us. It manifests itself not only in the glossy pictures and video of CNN and newsmags, but somewhat abstractly in jingoistic movies and video games, wherein American characters seem to have an unending capacity for dealing death. This in and of itself is not harmful - I participate not only as much as, but perhaps moreso, than many. The ability to distinguish between reality and fiction is not so scarce for those beyond childhood as many sociologists (and politicians on crusade) have been wont to claim.

However, it seems that, in the younger generations at the very least, there is greatly enabled a detachment to the presentation of even the most horrible reality. In an era (since Vietnam, earliest) in which media of varying forms can bring us greater knowledge of the suffering inflicted by our nearly casual warmaking, you'd think we'd become less, not more, cavalier about the consequences. There has been an almost polarization between those who empathise with the victims, and those who revel in our military capacity and a nearly gleeful about the ever-greater power of the weapons in our arsenal.

In Clancy-esque drooling over military gadgets, and sterile quantification of the violence that they enable, many members of the warblogging right have become nearly masturbatory. Beyond the den Bestes of the blogosphere are a wide range of lesser -knowns with a lust for the tools of the trade, and an indifference - or perhaps pleasure in - the results. It's as though war were a sport, and these fans are obsessed with the stats.

Dehumanization of the enemy, common through the ages, is also a frequent trait of the warbloggers and Usenet hawks.

(This'll probably seem overly worded when I sober up, but I have a hard time writing anything when sober, so it's for the best...)