At last people are beginning to say it, words to the effect that soldiers are heroes, led by donkeys.  Ten years of war in Afghanistan, and we still cannot beat a bunch of medievalists armed with the modern equivalent of muskets!  How long has it been since the British beat a Communist armed subversion in Malaya, using modern counterinsurgency methods (answer: over sixty years).  The methods are known, but the largest and best-equipped army the world has ever known has lost a war in Afghanistan.  There has been a different commander almost every year,  as one general failed after another.  And yet some Americans swoon in admiration at their failure, bedeck them with ridiculously medals and pension them off handsomely.

And now we have the most famous of them, supposedly in a vital job of protecting the nation, dallying with a mistress.   N.B: if you are busy making assignations, enjoying the assignations, and in the meantime writing sexy emails to the lady, anxious about your wife finding out,  you cannot properly concentrate on your job, which is rather a full time one.   Affairs do not mix well with making serious decisions, because half your mind is on sex (and that is a generous estimate).  The General  has been over-rated, mostly by members of the military-industrial complex.

No wonder Epicurus enjoined us to stick to philosophy and the garden.  Too many of those who run the country are a disappointment.  We have reason to feel that extra bit insecure, but then we are wholly powerless.