Commentary by STTPML (Evolving Essay):
1. “Nothing is so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.” (Sean O’Casey, “The White Plague”.)
2. Cognitive Dissonance can be a real “b*tch”. When there is a contradiction between clear facts versus emotions (preferences/interests), or between facts versus beliefs (paradigms and ideologies), or between emotions versus beliefs, this sets up a disturbing and potentially explosive dissonance or disharmony in need of resolution. So, for example, there is the legend-in-their-own-mind, smug, and self-anointed competence, sincerity and expertise expressed by the CIA analysts and operators interviewed, their self-serving renditions, versus the facts of their actual performances of creating and recruiting far more terrorists than they ever killed. The same issue of cognitive dissonance with the macho and testosterone-overloaded JSOC operators and “Kill and Capture” operations (that undermine and are a retreat from wider and more protracted COIN operations not enhancing them), because it is hard to continue to sell a war to a people from a culture that teaches them “You can have it all and you can have it now; you can have gain with no pain; you can have rewards with others assuming and paying for risk” . When the real true costs versus benefits are assessed, the JSOC types produce some hyped output at massive and hidden costs paid often by innocents.