The ethnic conflicts and insurgencies of our time, whether between Serbs and Muslims or Hutus and Tutsis, are not religious wars. They are not clashes between cultures or civilizations, nor are they the results of ancient ethnic hatreds. They are manufactured wars, born out of the collapse of civil societies, perpetrated by fear, greed, and paranoia, and they are run by gangsters, who rise up from the bottom of their own societies and terrorize all, including those they purport to protect.
— Chris Hedges, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning