US foreign wars: the banality of evil.

Supported by their families at home, American soldiers have been killing people around the world since Vietnam. While their actions were evil, the servicemen themselves were quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous. There were no sign in them of firm ideological convictions. Their immorality – their capacity, even their eagerness, to commit crimes – could be attributed to their ‘thoughtlessness’.

It is our inability to stop and think that permits Americans to participate in mass murder.