The man in the bomber jacket doesn’t press the buttons that fire the missiles and drop the warheads, but he gives the orders that make it all possible. One way or another, we’re used to seeing presidents display such tacit accoutrements of carnage. And the president’s words were also eerily familiar: with their cadence and confidence in the efficacy of mass violence, when provided by the Pentagon and meted out by a military so technologically supreme that dissociation can masquerade as ultimate erudition — so powerful and so sophisticated that orders stay light years away from human consequences. Full article.