"...By some transcendental entity or law."

If you have seen/read the anime/manga Berserk, you no doubt remember one of the most memorable sections: Griffith, having been tortured beyond all human endurance, is dreaming/hallucinating: he's a child, running around the deserted streets of the town in which he grew up. There's a sort of legendary, mythical castle above the town which he wants to get to more than anything, but it's hopelessly out of reach. Then there's a fortune teller who shows him a vision of an enormous pile of corpses stacked up and leading towards the castle, but only getting a tiny fraction of the way there. These, she tells him, are all the people you've killed so far. And to reach the castle, you'll have to kill an inconceivable number more. But, of course, it's not clear that any amount of killing would really be enough. Anyway, it's a chilling moment, and now I've spoiled it for you via my inept paraphrase. But the point is, it's also indistinguishable from current US foreign policy: to reach the mythical, terror-free castle, we have to keep killing terra-ists. See how many we've killed? Have patience. We'll get there. Eventually. Really--we will. Just you wait.