Manage the body count

The Vietnam War was another instance of a dishonorable 20th century war because again the honor elite betrayed the ordinary fighting soldier and allowed for too much killing for too little military and national consequence. 

Rather than ending the war, the objective of the political and military elite of the Vietnam War was to manage the body count. The issue was not the honor code of getting in or the dignity code of getting out, the issue was how to sustain a protracted, irresolute engagement therein. 

The cost/benefit analysis of the civilian and military planners who prosecuted the Vietnam War reflected the consumerism and materialism and rampant marketism of the time. 

The problem with the Enlightenment is it makes for bad and weak rulers. The American Constitution is a miracle of proper leadership but for much of the rest, the culture that tends to grow out of the Enlightenment does not describe the values of leadership a proper total philosophy like secular humanism would require. 

The Old Testament does lay out such system of values and of rituals, but little since then. The Bible is no more about God than it is about Moses.