"We will fight evil, but we will do it from above 15,000 feet"
About this Quote
There is a whole doctrine hiding in that altitude. Pat Roberts is not just promising to fight "evil"; he is carefully specifying the terms of American virtue: distant, technologically mediated, and low-risk for the people authorizing it. "From above 15,000 feet" is a throwaway detail that lands like policy. It conjures precision bombs, drone feeds, cockpit displays, the antiseptic glow of a war you can conduct while still making dinner reservations back home.
The line works because it turns a moral crusade into an engineering problem. "Evil" is absolute and theological; "15,000 feet" is measurable and bureaucratic. Put them together and you get the post-1990s Washington alchemy: existential language deployed to justify actions designed to minimize American exposure. The subtext is reassurance to a domestic audience: we will be tough without being vulnerable. It also quietly reframes the ethical burden. When violence is delivered from a height, responsibility feels thinner, dispersed across screens, targeting protocols, and committees. You can claim righteousness while outsourcing the mess.
Contextually, Roberts belongs to an era of politicians selling airpower as clean power, especially in the long shadow of Vietnam and later in the "war on terror" mood where threats were cast as moral contagions rather than political conflicts. The cynicism is embedded in the measurement. Fifteen thousand feet is high enough to be safe, low enough to sound decisive: a promise of domination without intimacy, punishment without proximity.
The line works because it turns a moral crusade into an engineering problem. "Evil" is absolute and theological; "15,000 feet" is measurable and bureaucratic. Put them together and you get the post-1990s Washington alchemy: existential language deployed to justify actions designed to minimize American exposure. The subtext is reassurance to a domestic audience: we will be tough without being vulnerable. It also quietly reframes the ethical burden. When violence is delivered from a height, responsibility feels thinner, dispersed across screens, targeting protocols, and committees. You can claim righteousness while outsourcing the mess.
Contextually, Roberts belongs to an era of politicians selling airpower as clean power, especially in the long shadow of Vietnam and later in the "war on terror" mood where threats were cast as moral contagions rather than political conflicts. The cynicism is embedded in the measurement. Fifteen thousand feet is high enough to be safe, low enough to sound decisive: a promise of domination without intimacy, punishment without proximity.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|
More Quotes by Pat
Add to List
