Last weekend, MSNBC host Chris Hayes offered the following sensible explanation for his reluctance to engage in a blanket application of the word “hero” to fallen US military members:

 I feel uncomfortable with the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war.

As might be expected from a domestic media that finds conscientious whistleblowing more appalling than the gleeful slaughter of Iraqi civilians, Hayes was assailed for his deviance.