Saturday, March 01, 2003
Who are they trying to protect?I tuned in during a Today programme interview with a US general this morning. I missed the pretext for his comments, but he was saying he thought there was too much emphasis on the avoidance of Iraqi civilian casualties in some or other battle plan.
He thought there was a danger that ground troops would be sent in early, after only a short aerial campaign (so that the inevitable consequences of carpet bombing the cities could be reduced). His concern was that they were trading off allied military lives for Iraqi civilian lives.
Presumably his logic was that the US and UK Air Forces could and should bomb away with impunity for a bit longer, killing the very people they were supposed to be "liberating", so that fewer US lives would be lost in street-fighting.
Am I the only one here who thinks that's perverse? That he'd rather see umpteen more innocent and powerless civilians killed than a few more professional military volunteers?
What if Saddam were holed up in Houston rather than Baghdad? Would he be equally happy to see masses of civilian Americans caught in the crossfire to protect the military? Of course he bloody wouldn't.
He must have an equation in his head:
1 US life = n Iraqi lives, where "n" is presumably a very large number
Having then heard Law In Action this evening, I'm sure he would be breaking the law. Military action is required by international law to minimise the risk of civilian casualties, but he's promoting a policy deliberately intended to kill more of them.
Can anyone in the US military tell me what is the value of "n"?
posted by Plig |
01:15 |
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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell
I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi
Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson
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