Note on comments
I’m taking my time to implement a new process for comments, studying the alternatives as well as collecting data on trolls and bots. So there won’t be a change today, although there probably will be one some time this week or next. I’m still not sure, so don’t worry about it for now.
But at the moment my leading candidate for the new comment process should be very easy for regular commenters here. Just fill in the information you’ve been using right along: username and email address, even if the email address is fake; as long as it’s the email address you’ve been using to comment here right along, there shouldn’t be any difficulty. Apparently I can grandfather all the previous commenters in and there won’t be a problem. Your very first comment under the new system will be held in moderation until it’s approved. That could take a few hours, but after that first comment you can comment as before and don’t have to register or go through the process again.
I will make an announcement prior to instituting the new policy and I’ll explain once more.
Say buh-bye to Starmer
And hello to Andy Burnham.
Starmer showed more emotion in his leavetaking than I’m aware of him showing before in public life. But I think he may be the only one crying:
Sir Keir Starmer choked up as he announced his resignation as UK prime minister Monday — less than two years after the Labour Party stormed to a landslide general election win.
Starmer, 63, set out a timetable to stand down after coming under mounting pressure following last month’s local elections, in which the governing Labour Party lost over 1,000 seats.
The prime minister announced his intention to step down after admitting the Labour Party was questioning whether he could lead it into the next general election, which must be held before July 2029 …
This represents a change of personnel rather than anything else:
Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor, is the overwhelming favorite to succeed Starmer.
He defeated Reform UK by almost 20 percentage points in last week’s by-election in the pro-Brexit northwest England constituency of Makerfield. …
Starmer’s popularity has plunged after repeated missteps and U-turns on policies such as welfare reform, as well as his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.
The Labour government has also failed to deliver promised economic growth and ease a longstanding cost-of-living crisis.
And yet, Labour will remain in charge. And who is Andy Burnham?:
Until last week, Burnham had been the Mayor of Manchester, Britain’s fifth largest city, for about a decade. He stepped down from that role to stand in a local by-election last week, easily clinching the seat in Makerfield, Greater Manchester, to become the local Member of Parliament in the House of Commons.
This was almost certainly no coincidence; Burnham stepped down and ran for the seat in order to pave the way for replacing Starmer. The seat he won makes it interesting:
Burnham’s recent victory in the Makerfield by-election was significant not only as it cleared his potential path to the premiership, however, but because he won decisively in exactly the type of constituency Labour has struggled to hold onto in recent years.
The seat is predominantly white British, traditionally working-class, post-industrial and voted heavily to leave the European Union in the 2016 “Brexit” referendum. Communities like Makerfield across the U.K. were considered Labour heartlands for decades, but they have become increasingly contested as many voters drift toward right-wing, populist parties such as Reform UK.
Burnham has spent years positioning himself as a viable alternative to Starmer, criticizing Labour’s leadership at moments of weakness while carefully cultivating his own national profile.
How Burnham would differ from Starmer as a national — and international leader — isn’t exactly clear.
Indeed. My guess is that it’s mostly a stylistic difference:
[Supporters] portray him as an authentic voice for post-industrial Britain — a man who understands communities that feel neglected by London. His “everyman” presentation and his easy communication style, they argue, contrasts with the rigidness and technocratic approach to politics that former government lawyer Starmer never managed to shed.
Critics argue, however, that Burnham has failed to make clear his views on some of the most defining issues of the day.
And that is no accident.
Reflections on the Reflecting Pool
As commenter “physicsguy” writes:
Report on my leftist friends: they are obsessed with the Reflecting pool and algae growth there. They see it as evidence of what an idiot Trump is and how it’s all his fault.
For many, the fact that Trump still draws breath is an affront, and evidence of what an idiot he is. However, as far as the Reflecting Pool renovations go, there have been arrests of five people for sabotage – although the NBC article I just linked says the arrests are “with no evidence so far.” There’s more information on that at this article:
As of June 21, the identity of one person who was arrested has emerged.
David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, was arrested by U.S. Park Police on June 19 and charged with misdemeanor destruction of government property, the Washington Post first reported. Hearn did not immediately return USA TODAY’s request to speak on June 21.
Hearn told the Post he reached into the Reflecting Pool and was able to “grab” the end of a “flapping piece,” but didn’t remove it.
“I didn’t vandalize anything,” the 67-year-old told the outlet. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
U.S. Park Police did not return USA TODAY’s request for comment. When asked what they know about the arrests, D.C. Metro Police told USA TODAY to contact U.S. Park Police.
Aside from Hearn, it’s unclear who else has been arrested or what charges they might be facing. Trump said law enforcement is currently investigating.
The office of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment on the alleged arrests.
Speaking to Peter Doocy on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said that “anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the Reflecting Pool will face the criminal justice system in DC.”
Pirro stopped short of commenting on arrests, or saying anyone had been arrested, but did say several citations have been issued related to the Reflecting Pool, and that those citations will be prosecuted to the full extent.
I, for one, can manage without a whole lot more detail at this point.
I find the following quite interesting, though, and could serve as something to let Facebook friends know:
Algae has resurfaced in the reflecting pool periodically over the years — including immediately after it reopened from its last major renovation in 2012, forcing the National Park Service to drain it, refill it and recalibrate its ozone level. And in 2019, crews had to drain four million gallons from the pool to fix a broken water line that had algae growing in it.
An Interior Department spokesperson told NPR over email that algae and other contaminants have “long plagued the Reflecting Pool since 1922,” pointing to the Obama-era renovation as an example.
You might want to highlight the words “Obama-era renovation.” It turns out that there was a more expensive renovation during the Obama administration and it didn’t go very well. You might suggest they take a trip back in time and look at this from August of 2012:
The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall reopened Friday after a two-year, $34 million reconstruction, completing the largest National Park Service project funded by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package. …
Now the pool has been reengineered with a circulation and filtration system. Instead of using city drinking water, it draws river water from the nearby Tidal Basin, which will save 20 million gallons of drinking water each year.
The pool is shallower — only 3 feet at its deepest point — to save water, and its bottom is tinted grey to make the water darker and more reflective of the 555-foot-tall Washington Monument. …
For two years, the massive reconstruction project shut down a large swath of the National Mall as the old pool was removed.
Sounds familiar, except it took two years and was far more expensive than Trump’s renovations (reported to have been about 14 million) – although it sounds as though what Obama did was more extensive in terms of landscaping. And what was the result of the Obama changes? Why, algae, naturally. From October of 2012, about a month after the pool was first opened after the renovation:
The newly-renovated reflecting pool was drained of water this week after ABC7 reported that unsightly algae and scum was creeping into it.
It comes less than two weeks after the algae was discovered growing on the water, something that isn’t supposed to happen after the multimillion dollar renovation.
The algae was noticed at one end of the reflecting pool in late September. It almost completely covered the surface of the water.
The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall reopened at the end of August after a two-year, $34 million reconstruction. It was the largest National Park Service project funded by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package.
Here’s the explanation for the algae at that time:
The Park Service says the Tidal Basin water isn’t chemically treated. Instead, it’s treated with ozone. The level of ozone, however, needs to be adjusted to prevent the algae from forming, but tweaking the levels post-bloom and trying to skim it off wasn’t working fast enough.
“Because we didn’t have it right at the beginning, the algae established itself,” says Carol Johnson, spokesperson for the National Park Service. “Algae doubles in size every four hours so it is a formidable foe.”
I have little doubt that Trump’s Obama-admiring critics will have the creativity to come up a reason why that is so different, and why Obama is brilliant while Trump is still an idiot. But to me, the whole thing indicates that the Reflecting Pool seems to want to grow algae.
More on the present situation, including some scientific background:
The Trump administration is using a mix of mitigation strategies, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae.
The Interior Department says hydrogen peroxide is a “milder treatment than chlorine and is used in spas and specialty pools like natural swimming pools,” adding “there are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment.”
Workers are also deploying what the department calls “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to neutralize algae and other pathogens in the pool.
I wish them good luck:
Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, took water samples from the pool on Tuesday. She confirmed the algae belongs to the genus Desmodesmus, which she said is “growing in excessive amounts” but is not toxic or harmful.
Christova says this kind of common green algae is found all over the region, especially this time of year. The reflecting pool in particular provides “excellent conditions” for algae growth, she said: shallow, stagnant water, strong sunlight and no shade.
“It could happen every single summer,” she added. “But it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process.”
It’s happened before, it will happen again – but it’s all Trump’s fault.
ADDENDUM:
Whoopi Goldberg says that the Reflecting Pool never had algae before.
And that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Open thread 6/22/2026
Yesterday was the summer solstice.
I’m contemplating some changes for the comments here
No doubt regular readers have noticed a lot of recent troll activity here. It’s not the first time and not the first troll, so I’ve long thought about the issue. One possible solution is to tweak the comment system slightly to discourage trolls.
This is one of the few blogs of any decent size that still has unrestricted comments. In other words, most blogs either have registration or something like disqus. From the start, I’ve always valued comments and I’ve wanted to keep the process very easy here, and I’ve done so. But there’s a price to pay when it’s too easy.
So I think that some time in the next few days I’ll institute a new system. There are many from which to choose, so I’m not sure which one I’ll use yet because I’m not sure which will offer the best balance of protection versus ease of use.
I’m sorry to do this, but my intent is not to burden you with anything onerous. It will probably require an initial registration with an email address, and I’ll probably exclude hotmail accounts although I think I may be able to grandfather some hotmail accounts in for regular commenters here who have used that kind of account in the past. On your first registration, your first comment would be held in moderation till I approve it. But after that first time you wouldn’t have to go through registration again and you’ll just be able to comment as before and your comments will appear as before.
Any opinions or suggestions on this are welcome.
[ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention that I will not use disqus. I find it very annoying, and there are actually plenty of trolls on disqus.]
[ADDENDUM II:
Here’s a further explanation on how this would actually work. It changes very little, actually. You use the exact same information as before. Nothing is different except that I have to approve your very first comment. After that, you comment just as before.
It does not require that I send an email to your email address, for example. The email address merely has to be consistent with the same one you’ve always used here. Only I know what that address is (and I already know it), and of course you know it. No one else has access to it. It doesn’t have to be functional.
For new commenters, I might end up requiring a functioning email address. I will do that if I find there are a lot of trolls. But for old established commenters, it just needs to be the email address that person has always used plus the name that person has always used.]
Roundup
(1) I haven’t written yet about Obama’s much-critiqued presidential center. But it’s about what you’d expect: the most expensive ever. I’m not a big fan of the presidential center/library concept anyway; we used to do just fine without them. See this, though:
Wow. The juxtaposition of the classic beauty of the University of Chicago with the Obama Library shows what an ugly abomination the new presidential library is. It's an absolute eyesore. https://t.co/zDL8QY3isJ
— Corey Walker ?? (@CoreyWriting) June 19, 2026
Just about unreadable even in closeup:
The words are from Obama’s speech at Selma. How ironic, given that Obama did much to hinder race relations in this country.
(2) Oh her way out, Tulsi Gabbard released documents related to Fauci and COVID:
Today, on my final day as Director of National Intelligence, I’m releasing never-before-seen communications and documents exposing how Dr. Fauci provided millions in US taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, worked with politicized elements within the Intelligence Community to suppress the truth about his actions and hide the virus’ lab-leak origins, and lied to Congress while under oath in 2024. It’s time you know the truth.
Seems to me we already knew that. But it’s good to have more documentation. I am fairly confident that the left will ignore it. Fauci was a real hero of theirs.
(3) Strait of Hormuz, open or closed? Here’s what CENTCOM says:
But Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, later said: “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. Traffic continues to flow, and U.S. forces are monitoring the situation to ensure this remains the case.”
Fifty-five commercial ships traveled through the strait on Saturday, according to the U.S. Central Command, the largest number of ships in a single day since early in the war, though still far below the 130 daily prewar average. It was not clear whether traffic had changed after Iran’s warnings.
Despite the fighting in Lebanon and the renewed Iranian threats to shipping, the next stage of U.S.-Iran talks appeared ready to start.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace …
(4) A Medicare fraud big guy is returned, and the scope of his crimes is impressive:
Herbert Leon Kimble, who pleaded guilty to orchestrating one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes ever prosecuted in the United States and then simply didn’t show up for sentencing, has been arrested in the Philippines and returned to face justice. The FBI had offered a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
According to the FBI, Kimble’s scheme generated more than $1.2 billion in fraudulent Medicare charges and victimized thousands of beneficiaries, many of them elderly Americans who trusted the healthcare system.
The arrest marks the second capture from the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list, which launched on June 4, 2026, and initially featured eight fugitives accused of major fraud offenses.
Note the extended timeframe:
Herbert Leon Kimble was apprehended in the Philippines and is now back in the United States, on the run since 2024 after he allegedly orchestrated a $1.2 billion healthcare fraud conspiracy that targeted the Medicare system, particularly elderly victims, from 2014 to 2019.
And what did the fraud involve, specifically? “Marketing and distribution of unnecessary orthopedic braces”. A billion dollars worth of them, apparently. Think big.
Here’s a lot more about Kimble. He’s from Chicago but operated in part from the Philippines, which explains his fleeing there:
Herbert Leon Kimble was involved in a large-scale healthcare fraud conspiracy that targeted the Medicare system through the improper marketing and distribution of durable medical equipment (DME), particularly orthopedic braces. He operated a sophisticated call-center-based operation, beginning around 2014 and continuing to March 2019, that served as the marketing engine for a nationwide fraud scheme in which individuals contacted call centers in the Philippines, telemedicine providers, DME suppliers (the billers), and orthopedic brace suppliers (the drop shippers). His operations focused primarily on initiating contact with Medicare beneficiaries and persuading them to request orthopedic braces for pain relief, which were frequently unnecessary and prescribed through telemedicine consultations that often lacked legitimate medical evaluation. The prescriptions were then sold to DME companies, Kimble-affiliated suppliers would ship the braces, and the DME companies billed Medicare for reimbursement. His fraudulent healthcare enterprise resulted in more than $1.2 billion in Medicare charges and affected thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, many of whom were elderly victims.
(5) Is Starmer on the way out? I’ve asked that question before, and he seems quite tenacious. But here’s another report:
Starmer is weighing his political future as cabinet ministers push him to make way for Andy Burnham following Burnham’s decisive victory in the Makerfield by-election. Starmer’s net favorability has collapsed to -46, with 69 percent of Britons viewing him unfavorably. Reform UK leads Labour by seven points. The governing party of Britain is being routed, and its own cabinet knows it.
Who is Andy Burnham, and why is he doing better?:
Polls suggest Labour would run six points better under Burnham. A former cabinet minister and mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017, Burnham acknowledged what Starmer never could: that Labour lost touch with the people it claims to represent, on immigration, on the cost of living, on who the rules actually apply to. Compared to a prime minister who spent two years telling working-class Britain its concerns were misinformed, acknowledging the anger was enough. …
With 79 percent of voters telling pollsters they know little or nothing about Burnham, Starmer is betting that obscurity disqualifies his rival, while his own rating sits at -46.
So Burnham is the proverbial blank slate, Labour version.
Suicidal empathy
I mentioned Gad Saad’s new book the other day, and I thought I’d highlight it here. It’s called Suicidal Empathy. Catchy title, isn’t it?
I’ve watched many of Saad’s YouTube videos, and he’s a no-nonsense guy, a Jew who was raised in Lebanon and whose family was one of the last to leave. He’s been living in Canada although I think he’s in the US now. At any rate, here’s something about his book, from the description at Amazon:
In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique of maladaptively irrational altruism that has gripped our culture. This mind parasite hijacked the empathy module of our progressive elite, leading to a catastrophic miscalibration of moral priorities. The results are everywhere: from coddling violent criminals to protecting rapists to branding self-defense as toxic behavior. We are witnessing a civilization in rapid decline. Lunatic policies are instituted because we prioritize the feelings of ostensibly marginalized groups over The Truth, criminals over victims, and squatters over homeowners. This is not humane; it’s an active dismantling of the pillars that keep us safe and free.
Saad is a professor, but he seems to be very realistic as well. His thesis makes me think of Robert Frost – yes, that Robert Frost. For example, this post of mine from 2019 contains the following thoughts from Frost:
Frost was convinced that the conflict between justice and mercy in human affairs is an eternal and universal moral problem of humanity, and not merely a contemporary political partisan concern…
With these facts in mind Frost’s criticism of the New Deal as “nothing but an outbreak of mass mercy,” is clearly more than mere partisan politics. In 1936, in the midst of attacks on [his collection of poetry] A Further Range by the political Left, Frost wrote to Ferner Nuhn, a young New Deal acquaintance and friend of Henry Wallace, that “strict justice is basic” for a free society, and freedom implied that some people succeeded and others failed. The winners reaped the rewards of their talents and efforts, but what about the losers? Frost acknowledged that government “must do something for the losers. It must show them mercy. Justice first and mercy second. The trouble with some of your crowd is that it would have mercy first. The struggle to win is still the best tonic. . . . Mercy . . . is another word for socialism.” Frost believed that what was commonly called “distributive justice,” the attempt to spread the wealth of society to the masses, through graduated in-come taxes and other such devices, was really distributive mercy misnamed.
Frost was writing about socialism in 1936, whereas Saad is writing more generally. But the principle is much the same. Empathy – similar to Frost’s mercy – is part of human nature and definitely has its uses. But taken to an extreme, and misapplied, it is dangerous and can lead to either failure of an economic system or cultural suicide or literal deaths, as well as restraints on liberty in the name of kindness.
Open thread 6/20/2026
Iranian hardliners
I’m not going to write much about Iran today. My opinions haven’t changed substantially, and I don’t trust much of the analysis coming out. I certainly plan to say a lot more over time, but right now I just don’t have much to add.
But I wonder whether this has any meaning, or is just some form of theater (I actually think that way about a great many of the statements on both sides):
Iranian ultra-hardliners have launched a fierce campaign against a newly announced framework agreement with the United States, labeling it a humiliating capitulation that betrays the ideals of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The strongest backlash has come from the Paydari Front, also known as the Endurance or Steadfastness Front, which is a small but vocal faction of ideological purists. The group positions itself as the guardian of the revolution’s anti-Western principles.
Either they mean it – which is somewhat encouraging, because it might indicate that the “deal” isn’t a total capitulation on our part – or they don’t. If they don’t, they’re laughing at us behind the scenes and celebrating.
John McWhorter on Karmelo Anthony
Commenter “Kate” linked to this thread on “X” by John McWhorter, about Karmelo Anthony and his motives for stabbing Austin Metcalf. I had read the thread last night; it’s long, so I’m just giving the link here and discussing some excerpts.
McWhorter made this statement that Kate posted in her comment:
Young Black men need to be told not to fall for the idea that being dissed justifies physical violence.
Well, yes, as far as it goes. But “physical violence” covers quite a range. A fistfight – are those out of style? – used to be the way it was commonly done. A stab through the heart was not the norm, nor is it today. After all, it’s not as though most young black men are murdering people, although the murder rate is certainly higher in that population. Most young black men manage to learn that being dissed doesn’t merit stabbing anyone in the heart.
Plus, who was dissing (disrespecting) whom? McWhorter doesn’t highlight the fact that it was Anthony who was disrespecting the other team. Although McWhorter describes it he doesn’t characterize it that way. It was Anthony who crossed a boundary by coming to the other team’s tent, and who would not leave when asked many times. He defiantly stayed and even insulted (dissed) people there.
McWhorter writes about it this way:
Anthony sat down under a team’s tent. Anthony was neither on the team nor a student at its school, and an unwritten but widely known rule is that only team members are permitted under a team tent. Multiple student witnesses – and not just “whitenesses,” as several were Black — testified about what happened next. Anthony was told several times to leave the tent but refused, including a profane epithet, culminating in warning “Touch me and see what happens.” Team member Austin Metcalf shoved Anthony, who pulled a knife out of his bag, stabbed him in the chest, threw the knife into the stands and ran away. Caught by the police, he immediately admitted to the stabbing, reportedly saying “He put his hands on me. I stabbed him.” Metcalf died in his twin brother’s arms.
Anthony was the provocateur. He also came prepared with a knife, which was prohibited by the schools involved. Since he never took the stand, we’ve never heard his excuse for having a knife there, nor have I heard anyone else explain it. The venue was not the inner city, either; it was a relatively prosperous and peaceful area of Texas with a lower-than-average crime rate.
McWhorter goes on:
There is no reason to think Anthony was trying to kill Metcalf. He was trying to hurt him severely, putting him in the hospital, for shoving him, as he indicated in at first saying “He’s not gonna die.”
What on earth? That’s absurd, and McWhorter is dreaming there. No one stabs someone in the chest, with force, without trying to kill them. And “hurting someone severely” always carries the risk of death anyway. Anthony was not a child, nor was he dumb or insane. Perhaps he lived in a video-game or cartoon world, in which people stab people in the chest and the victims spring up again perfectly fine. But I very much doubt it. And “he’s not gonna die” is probably just a hope at that point, since Anthony realized he himself would be in big big trouble if Metcalf died.
McWhorter adds this:
Also, claims such as prosecutor Bill Wirskye’s that Anthony meant “Touch me and see what happens” as a provocation are based on a misreading of Black English. “Touch me and see what happens” is not a command to touch. It means “If you touch me, you will find out.”
McWhorter is a professor of linguistics at Columbia, and one of his specialties is black English. I’ve seen him in many podcasts and sometimes agree with him and sometimes disagree, but here he’s not making any sort of sense that I can see. The two statements – “Touch me and see what happens” and “If you touch me, you will find out” – seem very much the same and both are indeed provocations or dares.
McWhorter is by no means the worst commentator on Karmelo Anthony’s crime, but I find him quite annoying because he knows better.
[NOTE: Much of McWhorter’s “X” essay has to do with explaining Anthony’s behavior in terms of Sowell’s book in which he traces some of the violence in black culture back to the influence of certain strains in the southern whites among whom black people lived early on in the US. That entire topic interests me little at this point, because the historical roots no longer matter; it’s the current behavior that matters all these centuries later.]
The dilemma of modern warfare
The idea of fighting a war while keeping clean hands is a tempting one. The wars of the 20th century, particularly the Second World War, involved such massive casualties that neither we, nor other Western nations, want to pay such a price again. The deaths were hardly limited to the military, either:
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 60–75 million deaths were caused by the conflict … This represents about 3% of the estimated global population of 2.3 billion in 1940. Deaths directly caused by the war (including military and civilian fatalities) are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war.
Those are estimates, of course. But we won’t quibble here; the point is that a lot of people died and a great many were civilians. Many civilians died from bombing that deliberately targeted civilians, or from killing fields and camps that performed mass murder of the premeditated kind. The US was spared those civilian deaths, but certainly saw the suffering that resulted from them abroad.
Atomic weapons targeting civilians ended the war with Japan. It is a paradox that the enormous number of civilian casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably spared the deaths of many more by hastening the Japanese surrender (see my posts here).
By the time of the Vietnam War, our opponents had learned a thing or two. This was a guerilla war and a war of propaganda. The enemy read the US very well, and realized we didn’t have the stomach to go on and on and on. Also, it was as a result of the Vietnam War that the US draft ended and our military became all- volunteer, which removed most citizens from much knowledge of the calculations involved in fighting a war.
Later, instruments of war became more accurate. Our bombs are now relatively “smart,” certainly compared to in WWII or Vietnam. That doesn’t mean there is no collateral damage in which civilians die. But we don’t target civilians, and we have very little tolerance for the death of civilians even when it occurs by accident. These are not bad things; I think it’s a good thing to have compassion for civilians in war and even to try not to have many military casualties in war, if possible. But the unintended consequence is that it becomes more and more difficult, despite our technology, to definitively end a war against a foe who’s determined to resist and to use against us our reluctance to inflict massive harm on civilians or to put our own boots on the ground.
Terrorists and terrorist regimes have no such reluctance. Au contraire; they target civilians. Not only do they target civilians in terrorist attacks, but they also willingly put their own civilians in harms’ way, the better to accuse us of barbarity when we inevitably kill some of them.
[NOTE: See also this previous post of mine on clean hands in war, as well as this one.]