To fool someone into sacrificing his life to battle a chimera is a hideous abuse of the public trust.

...Daily I read the casualty list from Iraq -- and I invent reasons to make the deaths less tragic. This is a hopeless, maybe tasteless, task, but it matters to me if someone is a career soldier who knew what he was getting into as opposed to some naive kid digitally juiced on a computerized version of war -- or, even sadder, some guardsman who enlisted for God, country or spare cash, but not by any means for Baghdad. He's a volunteer, all right, but not for a war that didn't exist when he raised his right hand and took the oath...
The Lingo Of Vietnam

By Richard Cohen