A series of commercials from thetruth.com folks ran a few months ago here in America where the well-meaning young people ran a county fair-type attraction called Welcome to Crazyworld. They'd engage passersby with carny games or shows while gradually revealing horrifying statistics regarding cigarette smoking and its effects. At the end, they'd mention what they apparently believed to be some grand irony, like how cigarette packs list no nutritional information, and remark in a grave and disgusted tone, "Welcome to CrazyWorld."
Listening to NPR on my way home, I heard Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel discussing what has to be their favorite thing ever, which is the current war in Iraq. They, as nearly all of their fellows in Congress, are of course not opposed to the operation (Senator Feingold excepted, and bless him for it.) No, what bothers them is that it costs alot of money to break things and kill people, and they're worried that we might not have enough young men and women who will volunteer to leap head-long into the meat grinder. This talk led inevitably to the possibility of another Draft, though they stopped just short of naming it.
Vicious old men send the idealistic off to die in far-away places for terrible reasons. When they run out of willing ones, they start in on those guilty of being young and poorly-connected. One thing they never worry about, of course, is how they would feel were they the ones being shipped off against their will to fight people they don't want to fight. Neither are they in danger of losing their sons and daughters to this fate. They know people. They have the money, and the power.
Kids, welcome to CrazyWorld.