psychosis

Long ago, I read an opinion about mental health saying that schizophrenia, where you see and hear things that aren't there, was the only true form of craziness. All other mental problems are simply exaggerations of normal responses or actions that, in the proper environment, would seem normal.

Agree or not, I always remembered the story because it illustrated the meaning of the word psychosis, disconnection from reality.

On the topic. Among many of the other things that is disturbing to me about the war is complete madness it has created among Americans. Specifically, one mistruth I hear all too frequently in the military: "The threat to the United States has never been greater than it has today."

Let us take a historical example not even very far back, this was in my lifetime: 1983. Do we really think that the objective threat to the United States is greater today than it was in 1983, when there were literally thousands of independently launchable and targetable nuclear weapons pointed at every inhabited inch of America, and the USSR? I don't think I need to go back to the Civil war for a better example.

The statement is objectionable enough as a falsehood, an illusion of a threat. But the real danger in it is that it is so hyperbolic, so out of touch with reality, that it pushes us towards actions that not only don't help, they create further problems for us and exacerbate the ones we have.

We are fighting a global guerrilla war, and what is important in a fight like this is a long term, relatively low-cost, persistent and consistent strategy focused on the very small minority of people who wish us ill. The low-cost is important because it must also be long term - we cannot allow the cost of the war to overwhelm our economy. (Incidentally, our economy has always been the heart of U.S. military dominance and thus deserves a great deal more stewardship than we have shown in my lifetime. Problems like the current housing mess need to be foreseen and avoided by conscientious and patient leadership, and we could also do without carrying the elephant of a $9 trillion dollar debt on our backs.)

We do not have this strategy now, which is why we are not winning.