Perfect in What Sense? II

Nobody asked but …

Once I read in a forgotten novel or a forgotten review of a forgotten novel that one character described another as able to identify and illuminate the least distinguished facet of any set of circumstances. I am reminded of this when I hear of POTUS’s latest tweet recounting the attack on Syria as “perfectly executed.”

This microeconomic view of the attack addresses only the precision with which the military personnel carried out the delivery of technical weapons at a technical target … that has nothing to do with the outcome of the event.  So you can say that you may win a battle but you may not win the war.  Well, it is certainly the case that perfect execution of a military maneuver has nothing to do with the long term impact of the attack, but has everything to do with hiding the statist goals behind the attack.

This sort of waffling, weasle-wording, is typical of addictive behavior I am told.  All matters are restated in terms of the fix.

— Kilgore Forelle