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Flame » in reply to re: Killing is killing

A little bit pregnant
Mary Anne — (archived)

Like using a little bit of napalm. Either it's yes, or it's no.

First: I object, I object, I object! to the "so what" response here to the news that Americans once again think we can pick whichever rules we deign to acknowledge today. Membership in a community doesn't countenance this chameleonlike behavior. The do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do crap is lousy leadership, and when it involves maiming other people, even the enemy, sometimes to the point of death, it is morally repugnant. To shrug it off corrupts our moral and cultural values.

Now, we can be morally repugnant if we choose. But we can't disguise it behind the cloak of respectability -- "they weren't people, they were military deployments" -- and expect citizens of other nations to be too stupid to understand.

Second: The B-52 carpet bombing technique would have lost us even the opportunity to attempt to build a democratic regime in Iraq, because what people were left would have pelted any American they could find with rocks unto the third generation. We would also have been feared and reviled throughout the world. Minimizing casualties was not only the right thing to do, as we have that capability, but also the politically astute thing to do.

It's very sad that Americans chose to ignore international agreements in three cases, even if they were military installations, rather than deciding to do something else. It suggests that -- no, it proves that we have no compunction about using the stuff if we can find a plausible excuse. There are always survivors, and where there are survivors, there are martyrs. O joy O rapture.

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