The army isn’t the submarine that launches cruise missiles toward
Kabul in Afghanistan, or the sailors and admirals who control them; not the bomber or crew
that targets the power station; not the personnel at borrowed air-force bases in Turkey or
Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan or Tajikistan or Pakistan; not the Taliban, not the Taliban
generals, not the Taliban soldiers. Afghanistan’s army wields no Kalashnikov;
America’s army drops no bomb. The war is fought with propaganda, accusations and
justifications against enemy news and opinion. Yet innocents are fleeing across the deserts;
men who have been compelled to defend their government are being bombed into liquid shreds
and mixed with the mortar of their defenses. Overwhelming military force, even the whine of
a missile, the boom and rumble, the sudden loss of power and blackness, are more than enough
to frighten but not enough to convince.
