When we continue to think that war is our salvation. That war is necessary, and perpetual. That when we go to the polls, we are electing a Commander In Chief. When we forget that a Civilian President is elected. That it is the President who presides over the military, keeps them in control. When we forget that, we have become uniquely Pakistani.

Nehru collared, femmed camo colored clothing hints at military power. The color of our time is camouflage. Patterns of nature in unnatural color. Colorless, living things draped all around us cover us.

The emperor has new clothes… All hail our new chief. Our militant momma.

Other than the killing, what is war for, what does it do? It doesn’t defend freedom. That is a slogan stuck on your bumper. That is a celebration of war, not a result. The only things I can think of is that war is great for revenge and killing… nothing else. We don’t eat the bodies, at least most of us don’t, so the killing is just for its own sake. Killing for killing. War is the answer to its own question.

The bigger the war the better. War for a big reason. Something that will bring out the flags. Usually we have to have a big event, a stark event, something memorable to go to war. We can make that event up, but we need one. And we never want to call it revenge. Avenge is good, revenge is bad. Because in war, for those who have been in war, there are things that don’t make sense. There are assaults on your senses. Insults to your sensibility. There will be the reason for war that you keep telling yourself. You will name the enemy so that you can kill the enemy. But there is also this, and the truth is that there is more this than anything else in real war. There is an old lady crying out in fear. Fear that you the savior will strike her out of revenge. Out of blind aggression. That shear fire power is all you project. Overwhelming, blind vengeance. So horrid, so frightening that even a guard dog shrinks into the shadows. You are the gods with guns, smelling of gunpowder, sweat and sometimes semen. On the hunt for vengeance. The violent hunt.

The Iraq war is a war of “prevenge,” a war of revenge, before the event. So you suckers of war, you generation of gamers, you generation of the greatest mall, thank you for going to war for advancing the warfare state. Thank you for prevenge. Prevengence is yours, now and forever.