This week British air travellers have been subjected to lengthy delays at the check-ins following draconian security restrictions occasioned by an alleged plot to blow up several airliners.
The spectacle of government ministers muscling in on the action for their own self-glorification reminded The Impressionist of the underlying reasons for all this nonsense.
It's very easy to recruit young idealistic men of limited prospects and persuade them that they will be fighting and possibly dying for a just cause. Establishments have been doing this since time immemorial. They're called armies and they're apparently there to defend us from 'foreign thrall'. Which usually means armies of similar young men recruited by equally cynical - but foreign - Establishments.
The same forces that allow people to serve mindlessly in a traditional army also allow them to serve mindlessly in any other type of organisation: an Al Qaeda cell; a Hesbollah rocket squad; a football team. It is the uncritical fervour of young men that makes the hierarchy work.
The ministers, the terrorists, the club directors operate only for their own self-interest. That they can so readily obtain the cannon fodder for their adventures is merely a consequence of the pig-headedness of youth.
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