John I don't know if you mean that I or others are quibbling over the point, which you are saying is clear. But the point isn't clear to me at all--exactly what aspect or imperitive of a winnable war on a certifiable evil is the article about, or in support of? I really don't know, because the writer really doesn't say. And that's the point. The framing of a game of Who's smartest is a rather coy intro (for example, oh..., hmm, take the current war on terrorism thingy, for instance) to an essay that never quite gets around to saying what it means, and on it's way there, it makes a pun on "thoughtless" from a thinking sense to a sensitivity sense, and is in general simply boosterising patriotic majority opinions. I haven't read Sontag's articles on this but know from her Against Interpretation that she is sometimes prone to overdramatise a case.

   My point was that although it is certainly seductive, spirited, likable to see life as a game, who's smartest, who's thoughtless, who's left, who's right, who's wrong, who's right, who's good with a capital G, who's evil, who wins, who loses--but maybe it isn't exactly the truth of things. Maybe we just like it more than the truth. I don't think it's merely an abstract quibble, I think it's the opposite.