Tom has out done himself. Reading his posts is like having a jingoism party with flags for all to warmly wrap themselves in.

Moral relativism as used in political science is applying the same standards to one’s self as one does others. Again he displays a serious lack of understanding, of even the most basic terminology.

(Interestingly, although only an aside, in the field of anthropology, the term is used to describe how under different environmental demands cultural norms and mores will vary to conform to the needs of the social grouping. Thus creating the subjective differences between culturally external observers, and culturally internal participants. A substantially different, and perhaps even polar opposite meaning to it’s use in political science.)

So, let’s first define the term “Collateral Damage”, its proper meaning, and implications. Then we can examine a few possible reasons why Tom hides behind this language. We will finish off by taking a look at just one example of what he calls ‘collateral’ rather than civilian casualties, or perhaps more appropriately, targets.

Collateral: Of a secondary nature; subordinate: ‘collateral target damage from a bombing run’.

Secondary nature? Wars are fought by states, states exist to serve the people, thus the killing of said people should, logically, be defined as anything but secondary in seriousness. It would only make sense as a secondary, or subordinate in seriousness if one places state power above the people a state purportedly exists to service.

Conversely, the term is used, as is more commonly the case, if one seeks to lower the priority of consideration offered to the victims of what are declared to be errors. Irrelevant of which application, domestic or opposition, and regardless of he has even thought his position through, the reality of Tom’s stance thus becomes much more clear.

Nicaragua and Collateral Damage.

In an interview recorded in 1984, and later used in “The Age of Terror”, produced by Jon Blair, Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of the CIA from 1977, to 1981 had this to say regarding president Reagan’s actions in directing the CIA towards the creation and sponsoring of the contras in Honduras for Nicaragua during the 1980s,

“my concern is that it puts us in a position of being a state that sponsors terrorism”.

Sister Rachel Pinal of the Maryknoll Mission in Nicaragua (in an interview also conducted in 1984) describes the forms of brutality president Reagan’s contras took.

“They have dismembered people while they’re alive, they would skin them alive, they have cut out their tongues, they have cut off their genitals, they have slit women’s stomach’s – they have taken out the foetus when they’re pregnant,…”

John Stockwell, the highest ranking member of the CIA to go public with the activities of the agency (as well as testify in front of congress), had this to say on the actions of the contras; “There have been over 100,000 American witnesses for peace who have gone down there and they have filmed and photographed and witnessed these atrocities immediately after they've happened, and documented 13,000 people killed this way, mostly women and children. These are the activities done by these contras.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4069.htm

These are the actions of president Reagan’s counter revolutionaries, men he called “a moral equivalent of our founding fathers”. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande08.html (Reagan quote)

This same production by Jon Blair highlights a handbook that was produced and circulated by the CIA among the Contras with the title, OPERACIONES SICOLOGICAS EN GUEEA DE GUERRILLAS (Meaning: Operations in Psychological Warfare). This handbook contained directions on how to pacify civilian opposition through what can only be described as terror tactics. The handbook was based on manuals at the “School of the Americas”, Fort Benning, Georgia, which has since been renamed to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. It’s alumni includes the likes of Manuel Noriega, the well known former dictator of Panama.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1072940.stm (name change and alumni ref)

These actions as well as trade sanctions were condemned, and ruled as illegal in the International Court of Justice, on June 27, 1986, where the United States was ordered to cease all actions against Nicaragua. The US was also ordered to pay reparations for the damages sustained by the plaintive, Nicaragua.

A .pdf format copy of the ruling can be found on this site: http://www.icj-cij.org/

The US response was to not only to completely disregard this ruling, but to react with increased bombing attacks on Nicaragua. (Noam Chomsky, Radio Free Maine, Speech at MIT on the date; 11.7.95)

The real irony being that Reagan, a de jour outlaw, declared May 1st “Law Day”, to celebrate the 200 year partnership between law and liberty.

Not only was this behaviour condoned, but so utterly without concern for humanitarian, or civil values, that the man that over saw the training of these butchers, John D. Negroponte was later given an ambassadorship to the UN on September 18, 2001. This was probably done as he had proven his lack of ethics, and willingness to oppose the will of the international community.

These are important traits for his job, when one considers instances such as in 1993, the US and Israel alone voted against (Honduras abstained) a General Assembly resolution, otherwise unanimously supported, that condemned terrorism in all it’s forms in the strongest terms. The reason for opposing this resolution was because of a passage that recognized, as legitimate, the right of people to resist racist, colonialist, or military occupations. (Noam Chomsky, Radio Free Maine, Speech at MIT on the date; 11.7.95)

In his essay; American State Terrorism, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed points out the coherent and directed path of intention taken by the US in it’s foreign policy. The quote here shows the real motivations for the various covert, and not so covert actions taken by the US over the years.
“This essentially meant being in control of the world’s resources at the expense of non-Western nations. This fundamental objective of foreign policy in the post-war period is candidly indicated by a notorious declassified top-secret report produced by the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff, headed at the time (February 1948) by George Kennan:
“We have about 50 per cent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 per cent of its population... Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming… We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction... We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we will have to deal in straight power concepts.” “

Policy Planning Staff, ‘Review of current trends: US foreign policy’, 24 February, 1948, FRUS, Volume 1, Part 2, pp. 510-29

Of course, this is all very easily dismissed through the judicious use of simple denial. A clear favourite in Tom’s intellectual tool box.