All is Vanity

(Cross-posted at The Blue Herald)


(Click on the cartoon for a larger image)

Apologies for partially recapping a previous blog title, but I love this Doonesbury strip from Sunday, 10-9-05, and that line from Ecclesiastes really, really fits both this strip and Bush. This strip wonderfully articulates, with satire, an idea I remember struggling to express clearly back in a college piece. The stupidity of leaders or the pointlessness of a mission do not diminish the heroism of the troops themselves. Troops only die in vain if we are too stupid to learn from our mistakes or face our own vanities. Having the courage to admit someone acted heroically, but died unnecessarily, can be essential for preventing more unnecessary deaths. No one should die for pride and image alone, and the pain of facing the harsh truth of a given mistake is as nothing to the pain of actually dying or the pain of mourning a loved one. To pretend otherwise is dreadful, deadly vanity.