Costs of war

From No Caption Needed:

Sitting in a book store where I regularly meet with friends and colleagues to discuss the events of the day I was struck by the irony that what I was looking at was not just the tragic destruction of an ancient and majestic city, but the obliteration and erasure of civil society itself. With enough money and manpower cities can be rebuilt, but without the obligations and social capital generated by the relationships cultivated by civil society they are barren places; totally devoid of affiliation with friends and strangers alike, they are little more than political and economic facades that ultimately leave us alienated and alone, rather like the old man in the photograph, searching in vein [sic] for some sense of meaning lost amidst the wreckage of history.