[southernplaces7]

>sums up what is wrong with modern conflict --- the abandonment of the moral high ground and a failure to take into account the will of people and their right to self-determination

Pray tell, when in the whole of humanity's so often sordid history has warfare mostly been even within audible laughing distance of a tendency towards promoting moral high ground or taking into account people's right to self determination?

If anything, the wars of the last few decades have made more pretense of both those things (pretense, not necessarily real application) than any typical war at any previous time, when naked, crude, unvarnished conquest was the main justification most leaders felt inclined to think good enough.

[mrsvanwinkle]

actually smitten by your diction and writing style which stood out to me in an era of ubiquituous Strunk and White SAT essay form that everyone on the internet suddenly had a perfect grasp of.