[NickC25]

Exactly.

The whole quote can be boiled down to "the ends justify whatever means I want them to".

Yet the key takeaway relative to today's world is this - society needs to know what measures are being taken on their dime to ensure their "freedom" (loaded term), as they, as taxpayers, are indeed on the hook for reparations of any and all kinds. The US military destabilized Iraq and Afghanistan and spent untold billions if not trillions trying to rebuild it - yet I have a strong feeling that the Colonels, Generals, etc... didn't liquidate their stock portfolios to fund such an operation - they took that money from taxpayers.

The Colonel doesn't personally pay for the damages to society he caused - that's the taxpayer's job, and they should be, in his mind, grateful for that. But what he misses is that society at large has no time for people who think like that - that's why he's the bad guy. He doesn't care about the risks, and claims we should happily accept whatever comes next because in his mind, he's helping defend the country.